Rankings do not always do justice to the quality of a players and yesterday's Day One action at the RK Khanna Tennis Stadium proved just this.
Rankings do not always do justice to the quality of a players and yesterday's Day One action at the RK Khanna Tennis Stadium proved just this.
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| Leander Paes and Sania Mirza during their mixed doubles tennis match against Stacey Roheman and Alberton Richelieu. Pic/SUBHASH BAROLIAu00a0 |
Top seeds in the mixed doubles event, Australia's Paul Hanley and Anastasia Rodionova were made to sweat before beating India's Rohan Bopanna and comeback-woman Nirupama Sanjeev 6-3, 3-6, 6-3 while No 2 seeds Leander Paes and Sania Mirza hardly broke into a sweat as they steamrolled St Lucia's Stacey Nykita Roheman and Alberton Richelieu 6-1, 6-0.
"Leander and Sania are easily the best mixed pair here and should win gold easily despite their No 2 seeding," Jaideep Mukherjea told MiD DAY yesterday.
"They would have got top billing here. However, since Sania does not play doubles a lot on the Tour, she didn't have that many points and so they had to contend with second spot," added the former India Davis Cup captain.
The searing conditions were another factor that will hamper the Australians, according to Mukherjea. "It's simply too hot and I don't think Paul-Rodionova will be too happy to spend a lot of time out there in the middle, at least during the morning and afternoon sessions," he said.
In fact, Bopanna and Nirupama were quite unhappy having lost out after giving the Aussies a fight.
"We came back really well in the second set. But unfortunately, we could not carry that form into the decider," rued Bopanna, who earlier won his singles first round match against Uganda's Robert Buyinza 6-1, 6-4.
