Zeballos/Granollers Advance In Rio

Third seeds Marcel Granollers and Horacio Zeballos made a statement in their first-round match on Wednesday at the Rio Open presented by Claro, breaking Juan Ignacio Londero and Albert Ramos-Vinolas five times for a comfortable 6-3, 6-2 victory. Last year’s US Open finalists will take on Maximo Gonzalez and Fabrice Martin in the next round.

Roman Jebavy and Igor Zelenay rallied to defeat Marcelo Demoliner and Matwe Middelkoop 5-7, 6-3, 10-8. They’ll now turn to their attention to a quarter-final clash with second seeds Lukasz Kubot and Marcelo Melo.

At the Open 13 Provence, Wesley Koolhof and Nikola Mektic needed 73 minutes to move past Pune finalists Jonathon Erlich and Andrei Vasilevski 6-3, 7-5. The second seeds will face Frederik Nielsen and Tim Puetz for a place in the championship match.

Nielsen and Puetz converted four of eight break points to beat Rohan Bopanna and Denis Shapovalov 7-5, 6-7(3), 10-8. After failing to convert match point at 5-4 in the second set, Nielsen and Puetz rallied from 4/7 down in the Match Tie-break to reach the semi-finals.

Jurgen Melzer and Edouard Roger-Vasselin also advanced, beating Hubert Hurkacz and Gilles Simon 7-6(5), 6-4. The fourth seeds will meet Nicolas Mahut and Vasek Pospisil in the quarter-finals. Mahut and Pospisil saved six of seven break points to defeat French wild cards Arthur Cazaux and Harold Mayot 7-5, 6-1.

At the Delray Beach Open, Marcelo Arevalo and Jonny O’Mara defeated third seeds Marcus Daniell and Philipp Oswald for the second straight week. Adding to their success at last week’s New York Open, Arevalo and O’Mara broke serve on four occasions to claim a 6-4, 6-2 victory after 67 minutes.

Arevalo and O’Mara will meet face wild cards Christian Harrison and Dennis Novikov in the quarter-finals. The American pairing won 82 per cent of first-serve points (31/38) to defeat Dominic Inglot and Robert Lindstedt 6-4, 6-4.

Divij Sharan and Artem Sitak booked a quarter-final clash against top seeds Bob Bryan and Mike Bryan. Sharan and Sitak recovered from a set down to beat Andre Goransson and Ugo Humbert 5-7, 6-4, 10-7. Five-time champions Bob Bryan and Mike Bryan advanced to the quarter-finals via walkover.