Indian tennis player Rohan Bopanna and his Romanian partner Florin Mergea fought hard for three hours and 23 minutes but eventually had to give in as they lost their men's doubles semifinal at Wimbledon here on Thursday.
This was Bopanna's second semifinal appearance here after also reaching the last four stage two years ago with Pakistan's Aisam ul Haq Qureshi.
The ninth seeds gave a good fight and were on the brink of their maiden final here before going down 6-4, 2-6, 3-6, 6-4, 11-13 to Dutch-Romanian fourth seeds Jean-Julien Rojer and Horia Tecau in the marathon match on Court 2 of the All England Club.
Bopanna-Mergea began the keenly contested match on the right note as they broke their opponents twice to claim the first set 6-4.
But the fourth seeds came back strongly, winning 15 of 19 first serve points and also breaking Bopanna-Mergea twice. They also didn't let their opponents break them, thus winning the set 6-2, with ease.
Rojer and Tecau, in the third set, served brilliantly and played superb return games to break their opponents twice to go 2-1 up in the contest.
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The match turned into a see-saw contest as Bopanna-Mergea, playing some aggressive tennis, made a comeback to win the fourth set 6-4.
It all boiled down to the fifth set as Bopanna and Mergea came close but failed to hold on with Rojer-Tecau breaking the fourth seeds in the 24th and last game of the match to book a place in the final.
Earlier in the day, Indo-Vietnamese eighth seeds Sumit Nagal and Nam Hoang Ly defeated local pair Jonathan Gray and Ewan Moore 3-6, 6-4, 6-4 in one hour and 37 minutes to progress to the boys' doubles quarterfinals. They will next take on Japanese combine of Jumpei Yamasaki and Yusuke Takahashi.
Late on Wednesday, India's Sania Mirza equalled her best performance at the lone grass court Major by reaching the women's doubles semifinals with Swiss partner Martina Hingis.
Sania, who had reached the semis in 2011 too with Elena Vesnina, and Martina came out with a clinical performance to enter the semis. The top seeds needed only an hour and 19 minutes to beat Australian-Kazakh ninth seeds Casey Dellacqua and Yaroslava Shvedova 7-5, 6-3 in the quarterfinal played on Court 3.
Sania and Martina started off on an aggressive note, winning 20 of 27 first serve points. But Dellacqua-Shvedova came back strongly by winning a break point. However, that didn't help their cause as the top seeds were too strong and broke their opponents twice, leading them to take the first set 7-5.
The second set saw the top seeds play more aggressively. The pair broke their opponents once and a double fault by Dellacqua-Shvedova made it easy for the Indo-Swiss combine to win the set 6-3 and advance to the last four.
Sania and Martina next face American fifth seeds Raquel Kops-Jones and Abigail Spears on Friday for a spot in the final.
Later in the first round of girls' doubles, Colombian-Indonesian pair of Maria Fernanda Herazo Gonzalez and Deria Nur Haliza defeated Indo-Japanese combine of Pranjala Yadlapalli and Chihiro Muramatsu 6-3, 6-2 in just over an hour on Court 14.
--Indo-Asian New Service
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