Australian Open: Bopanna, Zhang advance into mixed doubles round two

Indian ace Rohan Bopanna and his Chinese partner Shuai Zhang advanced to the second round of the Australian Open mixed doubles with a commanding 6-4, 6-4 victory over Ivan Dodig and Kristina Mladenovic in Melbourne on Friday. Bopanna and Zhang will face the winners of the match between fourth seeded pair of American Taylor Townsend and Hugo Nys of Monegasque and wild card Australian duo of Maddison Inglis and Jason Kuber in the pre-quarterfinals. Though Croatian Dodig and Frenchwoman Mladenovic broke Zhang’s serve to narrow the gap to 3-2, Bopanna held firm under pressure, serving out the set at 6-4. At 3-4 down, the Indo-Chinese duo capitalised on Dodig and Mladenovic’s errors, including two costly double faults, to break serve and level the score.