Australian Open: Balaji-Cornea duo loses in men’s doubles 2nd round; Bopanna-Babos pull out of mixed doubles

Melbourne, January 20

India’s N Sriram Balaji and his Romanian partner Victor Vlad Cornea lost their second round men’s doubles match to Marcelo Arevalo of El Salvador and Mate Pavic of Croatia in the Australian Open here on Saturday.

The Indo-Romanian combo went down 3-6 3-6 to their 10th-seeded opponents at the Rod Laver arena.

Balaji and Cornea defeated the Italian duo of Matteo Arnaldi and Andrea Pellegrino 6-3 6-4 in the first round.

The Balaji-Cornea team came in as an alternate pair into the competition. While the Indian is ranked 79th in ATP doubles ranking, the Romanian is ranked 69th.

It is only the second time that Balaji has made it to the second round of the Australian Open, having done so last year with fellow Indian Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan.

Overall, this is the third time Balaji entered the second round of a Grand Slam. He had progressed to the second round of the Wimbledon 2018 with compatriot Vishnu Vardhan.

Yuki Bhamabri has already exited the competition with Dutch partner Robin Haase and so has the Indian pair of Vijay Sundar Prashanth and Anirudh Chandrasekar.

Meanwhile, Rohan Bopanna and his partner Timea Babos have pulled out of the mixed doubles competition.

Bopanna confirmed they have withdrawn their names from the competition.

No other Indian is part of the mixed doubles draw.