India's Rohan Bopanna advanced to the mixed doubles quarterfinals at the Australian Open on Tuesday with his Hungarian partner Timea Babos after a 6-4, 6-4 win against USA's Vania King and Croatia's Franko Skugor.
The fifth-seeded pair of Bopanna and Babos will face the unseeded pair of Colombia's Juan Sebastian Cabal and USA's Abigail Spears in the last eight. Cabal and Spears had won the mixed doubles title last year after defeating India's Sania Mirza and her Croatian partner Ivan Dodig in the final.
Bopanna and Babos got a crucial break in the third game of the opening set to take a 2-1 lead as King struggled to put her first serve into play. Her problems were compounded as Babos hit a couple of powerful shots past Skugor, who struggled at the net. There were no further breaks in the opening set, which Bopanna served out with an ace after staving off a break point.
Babos, who progressed to the women's doubles semifinals earlier in the day with Kristina Mladenovic, was the standout player on court as her hard-hitting ground-strokes had King and Skugor in all sorts of trouble. While Bopanna had a couple of wobbles on his serve, his poaching at the net was on song.
The Indo-Hungarian duo broke Skugor's serve in the fifth game of the second set to edge ahead 3-2 as their shots proved too much to handle for the experienced King at the net. 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.
Bopanna had reached the quarterfinals at all the four Slams last year, losing three and winning only at the French Open, where he won the title with his then partner Gabriela Dabrowski. He is now the only Indian in title contention at Melbourne Park after Leander Paes, Purav Raja, Divij Sharan and Bopanna himself lost in the third round of the men's doubles.