London: India suffered a major setback in the 2016 Wimbledon as the top seeded Indo-Croatian pair of Sania Mirza and Ivan Dodig crashed out of the mixed doubles event in the second round.
Later in the day, the sixth pair of Rohan Bopanna and his Romanian partner Florin Mergea also made an exit from he tournament after the duo went down 6-2, 3-6, 4-6, 7-6 (6), 6-8 to tenth seeded pairing of Finnish Henri Kontinen and his partner Australia’s John Peers in two hour and 55 minutes played at the court 14.
Sania and Dodig lost to unseeded British duo of Neal Skupski and Anna Smith 6-4, 3-6, 5-7 in a second round match that lasted for over two hours.
The Mirza-Dodig pair paid for their profligacy as they bungled on multiple match points in the final set before the unheralded British came out trumps.
Both pairs traded a couple of breaks in the first set before the top seeds got a third break, which enabled them to close the set at 6-4. Sania and Dodig looked on course for an easy victory but Neal and Anna came back strongly, getting a break and winning the second set 6-3.
The fancied Indo-Croat pair had problem with their second serve and their success rate was a mere 38 percent. In the final set, Mirza-Dodig pair were 5-3 up serving for the match at 40-30.
However, the British kept on fighting as they saved another match point before winning a break to make it 4-5. While serving to stay in the match, the Britons again were standing at the cusp of defeat with Mirza-Dodig getting another chance to seal the issue, but they failed.
The 11th game saw the locals break the serve of the top seeds and then serve out the match in the 12th game. In the girls event, Indias Karman Kaur Thandis poor show at the junior Grand Slams continued as Mariam Bolkvadze of Georgia won her second round match 4-6 6-2 6-2 in a little over two hours. Thandi had previously lost in the first round at the French Open.
(With PTI inputs)
