Paris: India’s Rohan Bopanna and Netherlands’ Matwe Middelkoop progressed to the French Open semi-finals after defeating the duo of British Llyod Glasspool and Finland’s Harri Heliovaara in the men’s doubles quarter-finals.
The 16th-seeded Bopanna-Middelkoop, who won 4-6, 6-4, 7-6 (3), will take on El Salvador’s Marcelo Arevalo and Netherlands’ Jean-Julien Rojer for a place in the final on Thursday.
In the other quarter-finals, Marcelo Arevalo and Jean-Julien Rojer overcame a fighting effort from Rafael Matos of Brazil and David Vega Hernandez of Spain and recorded a 7-6(6), 6-3 win.
Maiden entry
Spanish duo Marcelo Granollers and Argentina’s Horacio Zeballos also reached the semi-finals after defeating Dutch-British duo Wesley Koolhof and Neal Skupski in the quarter-finals. The duo, who won 3-6, 6-3, 6-4, have won six tour-level titles as a team and has reached the French Open semis for the first time ever.
It took them one hour and 55 minutes to send their opponents out of the competition. In the semi-finals, they will be facing the Croatian and American duo of Ivan Dodig and Austin Krajicek on Thursday.
Dodig and Krajicek edged the American-British duo of Rajeev Ram and Joe Salisbury 3-6, 7-6(9), 7-6 (10) in the quarter-finals.
Strong comeback
Meanwhile, in the women’s doubles, the Indo-Czech pair of Sania Mirza and Lucie Hradecka lost to the American pair of Coco Gauff and Jessica Pegula 4-6, 3-6 in the third round of women’s doubles. The American pair took an early lead at Court Simonne-Mathieu in Paris as they broke Mirza-Hradecka in their very game and held their serves to take a 3-0 lead.
The Indo-Czech pair clawed their way back breaking the Gauff-Pegula twice and making it 4-5 but it turned out to be too little too late for them as they lost the first set 4-6.In the second set, the 10th seeded pair of Mirza and Hradecka made a strong comeback breaking their eighth-seeded opponents in the first game and holding on to her to take a 2-0 lead.
The American pair clawed their way back first holding their serve in the third game and breaking in the next to level the score 2-2. Both the pairs were levelled at 3-3 but from there on Gauff and Pegula took the match away from Mirza-Hradecka winning three games on the trot.
