Indian and French duo of Rohan Bopanna and Edouard Roger-Vasselin were knocked out of the first round of the Australian Open men’s double event by the wild card pair of Treat Huey and Christopher Rungkat on Wednesday.
Bopanna and Roger-Vasselin began the match confidently but lost the tie midway after the momentum shifted towards the wild card pair and lost the match (6-3,6-7(2),2-6) in the first round which ended in 1 hour and 48 minutes.
Phillippines Huey had exceptional service and netplay which played a crucial role to decide the outcome of the tie and Indonesia’s Rungkat who was not able to find his rhythm and proved to be a weak link in the pair also stepped up his game as his shots from the baseline improved significantly as the match progressed.
The Indo-French duo got the first break opportunity in the fourth game when Bopaana hit a smashing forehand winner past Treat at 15-30 on the serve of Christopher, who could not win the next point.
The second set of the match was decided by a tie-breaker as both the pairs hold on to their serves throughout. In the 11th game, the Indo-French duo had earned two break opportunities but was not able to convert them. The wild card pair won six points on a bounce in the tie-breaker to level the match.
In the third set, the momentum shift happened drastically as the wild Huey and Rungkat were controlling the match after breaking the serve of their opponents and winning the set by( 6-2) and booking their place in the next round of the Grand Slam.
