Indian tennis player Sania Mirza entered the women’s doubles semi-finals partnering Swiss <g data-gr-id="70">ace Martina Hingis</g> to earn a <g data-gr-id="27">straight sets</g> win in the last eight on the outdoor clay courts of Rome Masters here on Thursday.
However, it was the end of the road for the Indo-Romanian combination of Rohan Bopanna and Florin <g data-gr-id="29">Mergea</g>, who lost their men’s doubles second round match to the Dutch-Romanian pair of Jean-Julien
<g data-gr-id="44">Rojer</g> and Horia Tecau at the Foro Italico.
In the women’s doubles quarter-final, the top two ranked players in the world accounted for the German-Spanish combine of Julia Goerges and Silvia Soler-Espinosa in an hour and 12 minutes with Sania and Martina winning 6-4, 6-3.
It was the same story in both the sets as Julia and Silvia broke their <g data-gr-id="23">top seeded</g> opponents once in each set. Sania and Martina reverted by breaking their opponents twice in both the sets.
The Indo-Swiss, who won at Indian Wells and Miami, <g data-gr-id="26">pair</g> were easily more dominant, winning more points on their and their opponent’s serve. In <g data-gr-id="25">total</g> they won 62 of the 107 points played in the match and needed just one <g data-gr-id="24">matchpoint</g> to enter the last four of another tournament.
Earlier, Bopanna and <g data-gr-id="33">Mergea</g>, who won the Madrid Open title last week, went down 2-6, 7-5, 8-10 in
an hour and 25 minutes in their first career meeting against the third seeds. After sharing the first two sets, it all boiled down to the super tie-break where <g data-gr-id="34">Rojer</g> and Tecau proved a tad bit better.
Overall, Bopanna and <g data-gr-id="35">Mergea</g> were as good as their opponents on their own service games but they suffered when it came to <g data-gr-id="30">return</g> points where they did not earn as many points as they would have liked. Also, as many as seven double faults at crucial junctures proved to be fatal.