Indian tennis ace Rohan Bopanna and his Uruguayan partner Pablo Cuevas produced a sublime performance to march into the second round of the men's doubles event at the Australian Open here on Wednesday.
The Indo- Uruguay pair registered a 6-4, 7-6 (7-4) win over Brazilian-Argentinian duo of Thomaz Belluci and Maximo Gonzalez in a thrilling opening round contest that lasted one hour and 24 minutes.
Bopanna and Cuevas remained dominated throughout the match, breaking their opponents serve once in each set. However, Belluci-Gonzalez broke back in the second set to take the match to the tie-breaker which was eventually sealed by Bopanna and Cuevas.
Bopanna and Cuevas will now face the winner of the contest between Robin Haase-Florian Mayer and Alex Bolt-Bradley Mousley.
Earlier in the day, fifth-seed Kei Nishikori stormed into the third round of the first major of the season after posting a comfortable 6-3, 6-4, 6-3 win over France's Jeremy Chardy in the contest that lasted two hours and seven minutes.