Australian Open: Bopanna-Ebden enter third round

Melbourne: Second-seeded Indo-Australian pair of Rohan Bopanna and Matthew Ebden barely broke a sweat in a straight-set victory over home duo John Millman and Edward Winter to enter the men's doubles third round of the Australian Open here on Friday.

Bopanna and Ebden breezed past the wildcards 6-2, 6-4 in a second-round match at Court 3 that lasted a little over one hour.

The 43-year-old Bopanna and Ebden dominated their rivals in all areas. They won 80 per cent of the first serve against 68 per cent 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.

In the first-round match on Thursday, Bopanna and Ebden, the 2023 US Open finalists, had beaten another Australian pair of James Duckworth and Marc Polmans 7-6 (7), 6-4, 7-6 (10).

In the third round, Bopanna and Ebden will face 14th-seeded Dutch-Croatian team of Wesley Koolhof and Nikola Mektic.

Earlier, another Indian, Sriram Balaji, entered the second round of the men's doubles in the company of his Romanian partner Victor Cornea.

Balaji and Corena defeated the Italian duo of Matteo Arnaldi and Andrea Pellegrino 6-3, 6-4 in the first round.