Bopanna-Dodig pair reaches quarters of Cincinnati Masters

New Delhi, August 18

Rohan Bopanna and his Croatian partner Ivan Dodig reached the quarterfinals of the Cincinnati Masters after edging past Juan Sebastian Cabal and Fabio Fognini in a tight contest.

The seventh seeds Bopanna and Dodig, who ended finalists at the Rogers Cup last week in Montreal, rallied to humble the Colombian-Italian combo 5-7, 7-5, 10-8 in a second-round match.

In the WTA event, being run simultaneously, Sania Mizra and Shuai Peng have reached the semifinals with a 6-3, 6-7(1), 10-3 win over Irina-Camelia Begu and Raluca Olaru.

In their fiercely fought match, which lasted an hour and 41 minutes, Bopanna and Dodig broke their rivals once but also dropped serve one time.

To Cabal and Fognini’s credit, they saved as many as seven breakpoints to make it as tough for Bopanna and Dodig as possible.

Bopanna and Dodig next face second-seeds Lukasz Kubot and Marcelo Melo, who beat Diego Schwartzman and Mischa Zverev 7-5, 6-2.

Bopanna is the only Indian left in the tournaments after Ramkumar Ramanathan’s second round defeat in the singles and Leander Paes’ first-round defeat with Alexander Zverev in the doubles first round. PTI