French Open: Bopanna-Qureshi knocked out, Mirza-Black advance

Paris: Fifth seeds Sania Mirza and Cara Black breezed past their first round opponents while the popular duo of Rohan Bopanna and Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi were shown the door in the men’s doubles event of the French Open tennis tournament. The Indo-Zimbabwean pair of Mirza and Black began their women’s doubles campaign with a 6-3 6-3 win over Slovakia’s Daniela Hantuchova and Israel’s Shahar Peer on Court 11. They will next play the Canadian-Polish combine of Gabriela Dabrowski and Alicja Rosolska. [caption id=“attachment_1549095” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File picture of Sania Mirza and Cara Black. Getty Images[/caption] The disappointing news for the Indian fans came when Bopanna and his Pakistani partner Qureshi suffered a 3-6 4-6 loss at the hands of unseeded Jonathan Erlich and Marcelo Melo. The Israeli-Brazilian pair put up a clincical show, wrapping up the second round contest in 65 minutes. Though Bopanna and Qureshi won more than half of their points on first serve, but their failure to convert any of the three break points cost them dear. The ‘Indo-Pak Express’ has done fairly well ever since it reunited at the start of 2014 but the results in the first two Grand Slams of the year leave a lot to be desired. Bopanna and Qureshi could not progress beyond the third round in the Australian Open. PTI