Australian Open: Rohan Bopanna-Timea Babos storm into mixed doubles semis

Rohan Bopanna

India's Rohan Bopanna and Timea Babos of Hungary entered the mixed doubles semi-finals at the Australian Open with a straight-set win over Colombian Juan Sebastian Cabal and Abigail Spears of USA here yesterday. The Indo-Hungarian pair took one hour and 15 minutes to get the better of Cabal-Spears duo 6-4, 7-6 in the quarter-final duel. It was a hard-fought encounter as Bopanna and Babos had to dig deep to squeeze out the win.

In fact, Cabal and Spears had the better break point conversion rate, utilising three out of the seven that came their way as against Bopanna and Babos' 4:12 record. But Bopanna and Babos kept a steady lead throughout the duel and managed to score more winners to eke out the victory. In the end the Indo-Hungarian duo won 73 points as against their rivals' 68. Bopanna and Babos will take on the winners of the other quarter-final between Australian duo of Storm Sanders and Marc Polmans and Spanish-Brazilian combination of Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez and Marcelo Demoliner in the semi-finals.

Catch up on all the latest sports news and updates here

Download the new mid-day Android and iOS apps to get updates on all the latest and trending stories on the go