India’s Rohan Bopanna and his partner Australian Matthew Ebden on Monday stormed into the quarter final of the Australian Open. They achieved the victory in straight sets over Wesley Koolhof of the Netherlands and Croatia’s Nikola Mektic in Melbourne. Bopanna and Ebden showed great composure against their opponent on Monday. They came back to win the match after being broken early in both sets. In the end, both sets went to the tie breaker, where Bopanna and Ebden held onto their nerves to emerge victorious with a score line of 7-6 7-6.
With the victory, Bopanna and Ebden, who are seeded 2nd in the Australian Open, are the highest seeded pair to remain alive in the men’s doubles competition.
The start to the match was nightmarish for the Indian and Australian pair as they trailed 3-0 in the opening set after Bopanna’s service was broken by the former World no. 1 pair.
However, the veteran Indian and his partner recovered in time to take the game to the tie breaker. It was a tie breaker of nerves as the Indian and his Australian partner forced quite a few unforced errors from Koolhof and Mektic to win the set.
In the second set, Bopanna lost his first service game with the Dutch-Croat duo going up 4-2. Just when it looked like the match would move on to the deciding set, Bopanna and Ebden clawed back into the game.
In the eighth game of the second set, Bopanna upped his game once again. The victorious pair forced the opposition to commit errors, as the game went right down the wire.
The tie-breaker saw Bopanna-Ebden race to a 3-0 lead. From that point, The Indo-Australian pair made no mistakes to carve out yet another memorable victory.
