The Indian-Romanian tennis pair of Rohan Bopanna and Florin Mergea earned a straight sets victory against the Brazilian-Argentine pair of T. Bellucci and G Duran 7-5, 7-6 (5), 7-6 (5) to enter the third round of the men's doubles event of the Wimbledon Championships here on Friday.
The ninth seeded pair outclassed their second round opponents in two hours and 11 minutes.
The match got off to a cracking start with both the pairs hitting several aces. Despite Bopanna-Mergea serving four double faults compared to three by Bellucci-Duran, the Indian-Romanian pair gained a crucial break point and later served perfectly to take the opening set 7-5.
Bellucci-Duran came back strongly in the second set breaking their opponents once, but the ninth seeds were good enough to force the set to the tie-break.
Bopanna-Mergea played brilliantly to win the tie-break 7-5 and go two sets up.
The third set saw an even better performance from Bopanna-Mergea where they served six aces. But Bellucci-Duran came back strongly in the third set serving three aces to go hand in hand with their opponent. The set finally went into tie-break.
Bopanna-Mergea held on comfortably to serve brilliantly to take crucial points to win the tie-break 7-5 and thus seal the match and book a place in the third round.
The Indian-Romanian tennis pair will next face the winner of the match between Lukasz Kubot-Max Mirnyi and Marcel Granollers-Marc Lopez.
