Bopanna-Shapovalov progress at Paris Masters, Sharan-Sitak ousted

The Indian-Canadian doubles duo of Rohan Bopanna and Denis Shapovalov continued their frune run to progress to the quarterfinals of the Paris Masters.

Rohan Bopanna and Denis Shapovalov put up a dominating display to ease into the quarterfinal of the Paris Masters.

India’s top doubles player Rohan Bopanna and his Canadian partner Denis Shapovalov progressed to the quarterfinals of the Paris Masters, while Divij Sharan made an exit.

Bopanna and Shapovalov soared to a commanding 6-1, 6-3 win over the American-Argentine pair of Manuel Gonzalez and Austin Krajicek in their second round match. The Indo-Canadian pair claimed three consecutive breaks to pocket the first set in 28 minutes.

The second set was more of the same a break in the fourth set was enough for Bopanna-Shapovalov to seal a win. Remarkably, the duo did not face a single breakpoint through the match.

The other Indian in the fray, Sharan and his Kiwi partner Artem Sitak, slipped to a 6-2, 6-3 loss to the French duo of Fabrice Martin and Jeremy Chardy in 53 minutes.

Sharan has won two titles this season, triumphing at Pune with Bopanna and at St. Petersburg with Igor Zelenay. The title with Sharan in Pune remains Bopanna’s only trophy in 2019.

They had united as a team at the beginning of the season, eyeing a berth at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, but separated after finding it difficult to enter big tournaments with their combined rankings.

Ramkumar in final

In the ATP Challenger in China, Ramkumar Ramanathan made the doubles final in partnership with Mikhail Elgin of Russia. The duo beat Vishnu Vardhan and Toshihide Matsui in two well-contested sets.

In the USD 60,000 ITF women’s event in Liuzhou, China, Ankita Raina made the doubles final in partnership with Rosalie van der Hoek of the Netherlands. The pair will challenge top seeds Xinyu Jiang and Qianhui Tang of China in the final.

(With inputs from PTI)