MELBOURNE: India's Divij Sharan and his partner Igor Zelenay came from behind to beat their opponents but compatriot Rohan Bopanna, who is short of practice, exited the Murray River Open along with his partner.
Sharan and his Slovakian partner erased a first-set deficit to beat Argentina's Guillermo Duran and Spanish Albert Ramos-Vinola 4-6 6-3 10-8 to move to the men's doubles pre-quarterfinals of the USD 320,775 hard court event.
They will next take on French fifth seeds Jeremy Chardy and Fabrice Martin, who got a first round bye. On the other hand, Bopanna who came out of his hard quarantine only on January 30th, and Denmark's Frederik Nilsen lost 4-6 3-6 to Australian wild card pair of James Duckworth and Marc Polmans.
Sumit Nagal had lost his men's singles opening round on Monday, so Sharan is the only surviving Indian in the ATP 250 event. This is one of the events, held in the same week at the same venue, in run up to the Australian Open, starting Monday.