Rohan Bopanna out of Cincinnati Masters tennis
Rohan Bopanna and his Croatian partner Ivan Dodig lost 6-1, 4-6, 7-10 to Serbia’s Filip Krajinovic and France’s Fabrice Martin in the opening round.
India’s Rohan Bopanna and his Croatian partner Ivan Dodig have been knocked out of the Cincinnati Masters, also known as The Western & Southern Open, men’s doubles in the opening round on Tuesday.
Up against Serbia’s Filip Krajinovic and France’s Fabrice Martin, Bopanna-Dodig lost despite dominating the first set to go down 6-1, 4-6, 7-10. Krajinovic-Martin will play third seed Colombian pair of Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah in the second round.
Bopanna-Dodig broke their opponents twice in the second and the fourth game of the opening set to take a 6-1 lead.
In the second set, they had a breakpoint in the first game itself but Krajinovic-Martin bounced back, breaking the Indo-Croatian pair in the fourth game to lead 3-1.
Bopanna-Dodig broke back in the seventh game and held serve to be tied at 4-4 but Krajinovic-Martin took the second set 6-4 to force a tie-breaker.
Bopanna-Dodig tried to catch up as the momentum swung in favour of their opponents at 4-0. They narrowed the margin to 6-5 but Krajinovic-Martin raced ahead to win the tie-breaker 10-7, and, with it, the match.
Last week, the Indo-Croatian pair was knocked out of the Canadian Open quarter-finals, losing to Joe Salisbury (Great Britain) and Rajeev Ram (USA) 4-6, 6-3, 10-4.
Sania Mirza is the only other Indian in action at the Cincinnati Masters. The former doubles world No. 1 Sania will partner Tunisia’s Ons Jabeur against Veronika Kudermetova of Russia and Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan in the women’s doubles opening round on Wednesday.