Indian star Rohan Bopanna and his Canadian partner Gabriela Dabrowski registered a straight sets victory to enter the final of the mixed doubles category at the French Open tennis tournament here on Wednesday.
The Indo-Canadian pair sent the third seeded duo of France's Edouard Roger-Vasselin and Andrea Hlavackova of Czech Republic crashing out with a 7-5, 6-3 verdict in the semi-finals.
Bopanna and Dabrowski survived a tough challenge from Hlavackova and Edouard in the opening set before dominating the second set to earn a shot at the title.
The seventh seeded Indo-Canadian combination will meet the unseeded pair of Anna-Lena Groenefeld of Germany and Robert Farah in the final.
Groenefeld and Farah defeated Casey Dellacqua of Australia and American Rajeev Ram 6-7(5), 6-3, 10-5 in the other semi-final.
If he does prevail in the final, Bopanna will become only the fourth Indian to win a Grand Slam title.
The legendary Leander Paes, Mahesh Bhupathi and Sania Mirza are the only Indians to have clinched Grand Slam titles.
Bopanna entered the final of a Grand Slam tournament after a gap of seven years.
He qualified for the Grand Slam final of his career in 2010 when he and Pakistani parter Aisam-ul-haq Qureshi entered the title clash of the US open.
The Indo-Pakistan combination had registered several superb performances in that tournament, including a straight sets win over second seeds Daniel Nestor and Zimonjic in the third round.
However, the 16th seeds ran into the legendary duo of Bob Bryan and Mike Bryan in the final.
Bopanna and Qureshi put up a brave fight before going down 6-7, 6-7 to the top seeded Bryan brothers who were also World No.1 at that time.
--IANS
ajb/
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