MELBOURNE:
Rohan Bopanna made his first Australian Open men’s doubles quarterfinals on Monday which ensured the 43-year-old will rise to a careerbest No. 2 in the individual doubles ranking.
Bopanna and Aussie Matthew Edben, the No. 2 seeds, scored a spirited 7-6 (8), 7-6 (4) win over the Dutch-Croat pairing of Wesley Koolhof and Nikola Mektic on the KIA Arena, where a lively home crowd cheered on the Indo-Aussie combine.
Interestingly, Melbourne Park hasn’t been a happy hunting ground for the Indian in the doubles, having lost in the first round the last five years.
The Indian has two finals in the mixed doubles, however, in 2018 and last year with Sania Mirza. In the last eight, Bopanna and Ebden will take on sixth-seeded Argentines, Maximo Gonzalez and Andres Molteni.