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Bopanna-Babos enter Australian Open mixed doubles quarters
Melbourne, Jan 23 (IANS) India’s Rohan Bopanna and his Hungarian partner Timea Babos entered the Australian Open mixed doubles quarter-finals after registering a 6-4, 6-4 win against US’s Vania King and Croatia’s Franko Skugor here on Tuesday.
The fifth-seeded pair of Bopanna and Babos will face the unseeded Colombian Juan Sebastian Cabal and American Abigail Spears in the last eight.
The match, which lasted a little over an hour, saw Bopanna and Babos break in the third game of the opening set to take a 2-1 lead.
In the fifth game of the second set, Bopanna and Babos broke Skugor’s serve and made it 3-2. Babos also showed impressive composure in saving two break points on her serve in the eighth game to take a 5-3 lead and all but seal the match.
The Indo-Hungarian pair sent down eight aces compared to their opponents’ five.
Bopanna now remains the only Indian in title contention at the Australian Open after Leander Paes, Purav Raja, Divij Sharan and Bopanna himself lost in the third round of the men’s doubles competition.
–IANS
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Sunil Gavaskar gives his opinion of GT allrounder Rahul Tewatia
The left-handed batsman from Haryana is garnering praise from all quarters for the way he’s finishing games regularly in the most exciting IPL season.
Gavaskar reckons Tewatia’s whirlwind knock in Sharjah (in IPL 2020) where he smashed West Indies pacer Sheldon Cottrell for five sixes in an over, gave him the confidence that he belongs to the big stage.
Speaking on Cricket Live on Star Sports, Gavaskar said, “That assault on Sheldon Cottrell in Sharjah gave him the belief to do the impossible and the confidence that he belongs here. We saw the impossible (he did with the bat) the other day as well. There’s no twitching or touching the pads (which shows a batter’s nervousness) when he bats in the death overs. He just waits for the ball to be delivered and plays his shots. He’s got all the shots in the book, but most importantly his temperament to stay cool in a crisis is brilliant.”
Gavaskar has also nicknamed the 28-year-old cricketer the ‘ice-man’ and lauded Tewatia’s ability to remain unruffled during the tense moments.