Bopanna-Ebden onto second round of Wimbledon men's doubles

London: With a smooth victory over Robin Haas and Sander Arends, Rohan Bopanna of India and his Australian partner Matthew Ebden advanced to the second round of the Wimbledon men's doubles competition.

In a rain-interrupted encounter on Wednesday, Bopanna and Ebden easily defeated their Dutch opponents 7-5, 6-4 in 1 hour and 11 minutes.

The second seeds, who are the current Australian Open champions, will face Germany's Hendrik Jebens and Constantin Frantzen in the second round.

The Indo-Australian pair had reached the semifinals of the season's third Grand Slam last year.

Earlier on Wednesday, India's Sumit Nagal and his Serbian partner Dusan Lajovic were ousted in the first round by Spaniards Pedro Martinez and Jaume Munar.

Martinez and Munar won 6-2, 6-2 in one hour and seven minutes.

India will have further representation in the men's doubles first round through N Sriram Balaji and Yuki Bhambri later on Thursday.

Balaji will partner Britain's Luke Johnson and will face fourth seeds Mate Pavic of Serbia and Marcelo Arevalo of El Salvador.

On the other hand, Bhambri and France's Albano Olivetti will take on the Kazakh duo of Alexander Bublik and Alexander Shevchenko.


With PTI inputs 

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