Australian Open 2024: Bopanna-Ebden Ease Into Third Round With Straight Sets Victory

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India's Rohan Bopanna and his Australian partner Matthew Ebden sailed into the men's doubles third round of Australian Open 2024 following straight sets victory on Friday (January 19) at the Melbourne Park in Melbourne.

The second seeded Indo-Australian pair eased past the wild card entrants John Millman and Edward Winter of Australia by a scoreline of 6-2, 6-4 in the men's doubles second round match that lasted an hour and 7 minutes on court 3.

The 43-year-old Bopanna and Ebden dominated their rivals in all areas. They won 80 percent of the first serve against 68 percent by Millman and Winter. The duo also recorded the fastest serve of the match - 203 kmph, and they also nailed 17 winners against their opponents' 11.

This match also marked the final appearance of 34-year-old Millman, a home crowd fan-favourite, who was honoured after the match by Tennis Australia CEO Craig Tiley.

Bopanna and Ebden will next face fourteenth seeded Dutch-Croat pair in Wesley Koolhof and Nikola Mektic in the third round on Sunday (January 21).

Earlier on Friday (January 19), India's Sriram Balaji also progressed to the men's doubles second round with Romanian partner Victor Vlad Cornea following straight games win over Italian pair of Matteo Arnaldi and Andrea Pellegrino by 6-3, 6-4 in the first round.

Balaji and Cornea will next face tenth seeded Croat-El Salvadorian pair of Mate Pavic and Marcelo Arevalo in the second round match on Saturday (January 20).

While Bopanna and Balaji keep India's challenge alive in the Australian open 2024, two other players bowed out of the tournament on Thursday (January 18), when Bopanna reached a milestone 500th win.

Bopanna playing alongside Ebden, scored a memorable 7-6 (5), 4-6, 7-6 (2) win in which they played two outstanding tie-breaks in their tournament opener that lasted two hours and nine minutes.

Meanwhile, a dream run ended in singles as Sumit Nagal suffered a second round loss to China's Shang Juncheng by a scoreline of 6-2, 3-6, 5-7, 4-6 in 2 hours and 50 minutes.

Also, wild cards Anirudh Chandrasekar and Vijay Sundar Prashanth suffered straight sets 3-6, 4-6 loss to Hungarian duo of Marton Fucsovics and Fabian Marozsan in the men's doubles first round match that lasted an hour and 9 minutes.