Eastbourne: Somdev Devvarman and Sania Mirza crashed out of their respective events but Rohan Bopanna stormed into the quarterfinals of the men's doubles category as India rounded off a mixed day in the Aegon International tennis tournament here on Wednesday.
Somdev, who stunned fourth seed Guillermo Garcia-Lopez of Spain 6-3 6-4 in the first round, fought hard before going down 6-7(1) 7-6(6) 3-6 to Julien Benneteau of France in a round of 16 clash that lasted for little more than two-and-a-half hours.
Third seeded pair of Sania and Elena Vesnina of Russia also gave their heart out before losing 7-5 4-6 6-10 to unseeded Australian duo of Samantha Stosur and Jarmila Gajdoov.
However, it was good news for India in the men's doubles event as top seeded pair of Rohan Bopanna and Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi of Pakistan defeated Spanish pair of Pablo Andujar and Guillermo Garcia-Lopez 6-3 6-4 to enter the quarterfinals.
In the match between Somdev and Benneteau, the Indian failed to capitalise on a service break he got in the seventh game of the first set. He was up 5-2 but was broken in the ninth game before losing the first set in tie break.
The Indian, however, fought back and saved two match points in the second set tie break to level the scores.
In the third set, Benneteau converted three of the four break points he earned against Somdev's one to pocket the set and the match.
Benneteau will now face the winners of the match between Igor Kunitsyn of Russia and Illya Marchenko of Ukraine.
Bopanna and Qureshi, meanwhile, will take on the Bulgarian-Italian combination of Grigor Dimitrov and Andreas Seppi in the last eight round.
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