French Open: Paes wins, Bopanna loses in mixed doubles

Paris, May 29
Indian tennis player Leander Paes, partnering Swiss Martina Hingis, entered the second round while his compatriot Rohan Bopanna, with Kazakh Yaroslava Shvedova, crashed out from the first round of mixed doubles at the French Open here.

Eighth seeded Paes-Hingis totally outclassed Russian Alla Kudryavtseva and her Colombian partner Juan Sebastian Cabal 6-2, 6-3 to enter the second round of the clay court Major on Thursday. The Indo-Swiss pair next face Slovenian-Romanian combine of Katarina Srebotnik and Horia Tecau next at Stade Roland Garros.

It was an easy task for Paes and Hingis as they had full control right from the start winning 88 percent of first serve points and 62 percent of second serve points. They broke their opponents thrice out of seven opportunities to 53 of the 89 points played.

Earlier, Bopanna-Shvedova fought hard but their efforts went in vain as they were beaten 6-7(5), 6-0, 3-10 by Czech-Polish combine of Lucie Hradecka and Marcin Matkowski.

The first set was a tight contest as only a tie-breaker, which went in favour of Hradecka and Matkowski, could settle it. However, the Indo-Kazakh pair came back strongly to win all six games of the second set and push the match in to the decider. But they were failed to make an impact in the super tie-break, easily losing 3-10.