US Open: Leander Paes, Rohan Bopanna to face off in mixed doubles semi-finals

New York, US: In what seems to be a mouth-watering clash for Indian tennis fans, Rohan Bopanna has ensured a semi-final clash with veteran Leander Paes after the two won their respective mixed doubles matches on Day 8 of the US Open. The fourth-seeded pair of Paes and Hingis moved into the final-four after getting a walk-over from the Romanian pair of Simona Halep and Horia Tecau in the last-eight encounter. Bopanna and his Chinese Taipei partner Yung-Jan Chan though had to battle hard against Su-Wei Hsieh (Chinese Taipei) and Henri Kontinen (Finland). [caption id=“attachment_2063431” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File photo of Leander Paes and Martina Hingis. Getty [/caption] The second-seeded Bopanna-Chan combine got the better of Hsieh and Kontinen 7-6, 5-7, 13-11 in a 1 hour 50 minute battle on Court 17. Meanwhile Bopanna also continued his winning run in the men’s doubles draw as he booked a quarterfinal berth along with partner Florin Mergea. Bopanna and Mergea staved off the third-round challenge from Canada’s Daniel Nestor and Edouard Roger-Vasselin of France 6-7, 6-4, 6-3 in a match that lasted for just over 2 hours. The sixth-seeded pair dished out 10 aces as compared to the three sent down by the Canadian-French pair, which was seeded ninth. The Indo-Romanian duo will now face Dominic Inglot of Great Britain and Robert Lindstedt of Sweden in the last-eight encounter. India also saw success in the junior girls section as Karman Kaur Thandi served past Germany’s Katharina Hobgarski 6-3, 7-6 in the singles opening round. Thandi will now face Evgeniya Levashova of Russia in the third round. 15th-seeded Pranjala Yadlapalli though had to bow out after suffering a 6-7, 3-6 first-round defeat against Valentini Grammatikopoulou of Greece. Even Thandi, 17, was not lucky in the junior girls doubles draws she and Elini Christofi of Greece suffered a first-round defeat at the hands of the Australian duo of Kimberly Birrell and Maddison Inglis 3-6, 5-7. PTI