The Indo-French combo of Rohan Bopanna and Edouard Roger-Vasselin sailed through to the second round of the Australian Open with straight sets win over the Ryan Harrison and Vasek Pospisil.
The 10th seeds Bopanna and Roger-Vasselin overcame the American-Canadian paring with a comfortable 6-2, 7-6 (7-5) in the first round of the first Grand Slam of the year.
Bopanna-Vasselin took the first set with an impressive performance, breaking their opponents twice consecutively. Though the second set was a seesaw battle, eventually the seeded pair came up on top in the tie-breaker.
The experienced Indo-French pair converted two of the seven break points whereas their opponents failed to convert both their breakpoints. In addition, Bopanna and Vasselin hit 18 winners and won 81 per cent of their first serve points.
They will next face either the pair of James Cerretani/Ken Skupski or Leonardo Mayer/Joao Sousa in the second round.
Meanwhile, Rohan Bopanna will be playing with a new mixed doubles partner at the Australian Open beginning on January 15. He is paring up with Hungary’s Timea Babos, who had teamed up with Czech Republic’s Andrea Hlavackova to win the doubles title at the year-end WTA finals.
The news came as a surprise as Bopanna had some success with his previous partner, Canada’s Gabriela Dabrowski. The 37-year-old had, in fact, won his maiden Slam, last year’s French Open, with the Canadian. But they apparently decided to split as they had lost a few close matches.
Speaking to The New Indian Express, he said, "After the French Open, we played in the next two Slams as well but we decided to split because there were certain close moments in matches that we couldn’t finish. When we began the association (US Open 2016), we decided to take it event by event."
That same formula will be in play with Babos. "At the moment we are just fixed for the Australian Open."