India’s Rohan Bopanna and his partner Nadia Kichenok of Ukraine were eliminated in the mixed doubles quarterfinals of the Australian Open on Thursday. The Indo-Ukranian pair of Bopanna-Nadia was shown the door after a 6–0, 6–2 loss to the pair of Barbora Krejčíková of the Czech Republic and Nicola Mectic of Croatia. The pair of Rohan and Nadia looked completely off-color as they bowed out of the Australian Open after losing the quarterfinals in just 47 minutes.
At the same time, the fourth seed in the men’s doubles, Ivan Dodig of Croatia and Philip Polasek of Slovakia were eliminated in the semi-finals. They were beaten 7-6, 6-3, 6-4 by Australia’s Max Purcell and Luke Saville. The match lasted 2 hours 19 minutes.
This was Rohan Boppana’s, World No-38, first mixed doubles in any Grand Slam. The Indian had failed to make a cut for the quarter-finals of the Australian Open in singles. Boppana and Nadia had joined forces at the last moment after Sania Mirza had pulled out of the Australian Open following a calf injury. Boppana was to participate in the mixed doubles with Sania Mirza but was forced to pair with world number 628 Nadia, who was to enter the women’s doubles with India’s Sania Mirza.
Sania Mirza, who made a dream come back to the court by winning the Hobart International doubles title along with Nadia, had pulled out of the competition in the middle of her women’s doubles match at the Australian Open. Sania-Nadia were trailing 2–6, 0–1 from China’s Xianuan Han and Lin Zhu in the opening round of women’s doubles when Sania’s injury, which happened during practice, aggravated and forced Sania to quit the match.
Earlier, legendary Leander Paes, who is playing his last Australian Open, was also knocked out of the Australian Open after Paes along with his Latvian partner Jelena Ostapenko bowed out in straight sets to Jamie Murray and Bethanie Mattek-Sands.
