London: The Indo-Romanian tennis pair of Rohan Bopanna and Florin Mergea entered the third round of men's doubles at the Wimbledon Championships with a tight straight sets victory against the Brazilian-Argentine pair of Thomaz Bellucci and Guillermo Duran 7-5, 7-6 (5), 7-6 (5) on Friday.
The ninth-seeded pair outclassed their second round opponents in two hours and 11 minutes.
The match got off to a cracking start with both the pairs hitting several aces. Despite Bopanna-Mergea serving four double faults compared to three by Bellucci-Duran, the Indo-Romanian pair gained a crucial break point and later served perfectly to take the opening set 7-5.
Bellucci-Duran came back strongly in the second set breaking their opponents once, but the ninth seeds were good enough to break back and force the set to the tie-break. Bopanna-Mergea played brilliantly to win the tie-break 7-5 and go two sets up.
The third set saw an even better performance from Bopanna-Mergea where they served six aces. But Bellucci-Duran came back strongly in the third set serving three aces to go hand in hand with their opponent. The set finally went into tie-break.
Bopanna-Mergea held on comfortably to serve brilliantly to take crucial points to win the tie-break 7-5 and thus seal the match and book a place in the third round.
The Indo-Romanian pair will next face the winner of the match between the Polish-Belarusian pair of Lukasz Kubot and Max Mirnyi and Spaniards Marcel Granollers and Marc Lopez.
