N Sriram Balaji ousted, Yuki Bhambri advances in doubles

Indian tennis player Yuki Bhambri, alongside his French partner Albano Olivetti, made it to the second round of Wimbledon 2024 men’s doubles competition after defeating Alexander Bublik and Alexander Shevchenko of Kazakhstan 6-4, 6-4 in straight sets.

N Sriram Balaji, who is set to partner Rohan Bopanna in the Paris 2024 Olympics men’s doubles event, however, crashed out of the Grand Slam event.

Balaji, paired up with Great Britain's Luke Johnson, lost their opening round match against El Salvador’s Marcelo Arevalo and Croatia’s Mate Pavic, the reigning French Open doubles champions.

Bhambri and Olivetti held their serve in the opening four games before breaking the opposition’s serve in the fifth. The Kazakhstan duo fought back with a service break of their own but the Indo-French duo re-established their cushion before taking the opening set comfortably.

The second set was tightly fought until the fifth game, which saw Bhambri and Olivetti break serve without losing a point. Bublik and Shevchenko managed to take the next few games deep but failed to extend the match to a third set.

The Indian tennis player and his French partner will face the eighth-seeded German pair of Kevin Krawietz and Tim Puetz in the second round.

Later in the day, N Sriram Balaji and Great Britain's Luke Johnson lost 6-4, 7-5 to fourth seeds Marcelo Arevalo and Mate Pavic.

Arevalo and Pavic dominated the first set and cliched it 6-4. They had three break point opportunities and converted one of them.

The Indo-British pair put on a much tougher front in the second set and went down fighting.

Indian tennis star Rohan Bopanna and his Australian partner Matthew Ebden will be in action on Friday in the third round of the men’s doubles. The second-seed pair will face Hendrik Jebens and Constantin Frantzen of Germany.

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