Rohan Bopanna finished the 47-minute second-round match with a medley of trick of shots that saw his partner Sania Mirza join spectators in applauding him. The 41-year-old was forced to retreat on match point, he back-peddled and whipped up the ball off his shoes strings before turning his wrist on the return, floating a winning lob.
Sania and Bopanna, champion doubles players, were too strong a team for the British pair of Emily Webley-Smith and Aidan McHugh, coming through 6-3, 6-1 in the round of 32 late on Saturday.
The Indians won 89% of points on their first serve which set the pace of play. Sania, who bowed out of the women's doubles with Bethanie Mattek-Sands earlier in the day, was solid from the back of the court, setting up her partner at the net. Bopanna, who has been all over the grounds in the first week of the tournament, supporting fellow Indians, as also his friend and sometimes doubles partner Canada's Denis Shapovalov, took a game or two to get into the mix on Saturday.
Sania, who celebrated the win on court with son Izhaan, and Bopanna will play the 14th seeds Jean-Julien Rojer and Slovenian Andreja Klepac in the third round. Earlier in the week, Sania and Bopanna played their first match as a team since the 2016 Rio Olympics, where they missed the podium by a whisker.
India's Divij Sharan and Briton Samantha Murray Sharan, the first husband and wife duo in the mixed-doubles draw at Wimbledon in 30-years, bowed out in the second round, falling 6-3, 6-7 (1), 3-6 to the tenth seeds Raven Klassen of South Africa and Croat Darija Jurak in a little over two hours late on Saturday.
