Rio Olympics 2016: Sania-Bopanna Keep India's Medal Hunt On, Move Into Mixed Doubles Quarters

India's lone challenge at the tennis event at Rio Olympics - the mixed doubles duo of Sania Mirza and Rohan Bopanna kept the nation's hopes alive by entering the quarterfinals with a straight-set win over Australians Samantha Stosur and John Peers on Thursday night.

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Sania and Bopanna, who came into the Rio Olympics as the best bet at a medal for India, won their opening round match 7-5, 6-4 in 75 minutes. They will now take on the unseeded Great Britain pair of Andy Murray and Heather Watson who beat Spanish combo of David Ferrer and Carla Suarez Navarro 6-3, 6-3 in their first round match. Four years ago in London, Sania, partnering with Leander Paes, also made it to the mixed doubles quarter-finals.

Earlier, the Indians had suffered first round defeats in both men's and women's doubles events in Rio Olympics.

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The fourth seeded Indian pair broke their opponents and gained an upper hand in the opening set by going 5-4 up to serve for the set. But they conceded the advantage in the next game itself and were broken back with scoreline levelled at 5-5. However, there was more drama in store as exchange of break points continued with Sania and Bopanna stealing away the advantage yet again, making it 6-5 and serving for the opening set once more. This time the Indians did not falter and wrapped up the first set in their favour 7-5. Sania and Bopanna had three set points as they bagged the opening set in 36 minutes.

In the second set, Sania and Bopanna were patchy to start with as they struggled to even keep their own serve. But even the Australians struggled to keep their service. And a double fault from John Peers gifted the Indians an early break and they took a 3-2 lead before holding on to their own service game to surge ahead 4-2. Although Bopanna started off with two double faults in India's service game, the Indians recovered well to consolidate the break. It was just a matter of holding the serve thereafter and the Indian duo did just that to seal the second set in 37 minutes and walk away with the match.

PTI

In other results late on Thursday night, shuttler Kidambi Srikanth won his opening match to keep the tempo high among badminton singles for India after wins for Saina Nehwal and PV Sindhu as well. However, Indian women's hockey team lost to USA 3-0 to see their chances of making the quarters dip.