Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Mike Bryan’s bid to complete the French-Wimbledon mixed doubles ‘double’ is still on after the No.1 seeds moved into the quarter-finals on Wednesday.
Both put surprise defeats in the ladies’ and men’s doubles behind them to beat New Zealand’s Michael Venus and Romanian Raluca Olaru 7-6(3), 7-5 on No.3 Court.
The American pair captured the mixed title at Roland Garros when they beat Marcin Matkowski and Lucie Hradecka in the Paris final. Mattek-Sands left the French capital with two doubles trophies when she and Lucie Safarova captured the women’s team title.
In fact, Mattek-Sands is trying to win at least one doubles title at the last three majors having also won the women’s event alongside Safarova at the Australian Open in Melbourne in January.
Mattek-Sands and Bryan will need to play well to continue their progress when they face former Wimbledon mixed champions and No.8 seeds Daniel Nestor and Kristina Mladenovic in the last eight.
No.3 seeds Matkowski and Elena Vesnina joined them in the quarter-finals in the top half when they beat No.16 seeds Lukasz Kubot and Andrea Hlavackova 6-7(4), 6-4, 11-9 in just over two-and-a-half hours.
After scrambling over the finish line in near-darkness on No.2 Court, they go through to face No.7 seeds Martina Hingis and Leander Paes in the next round.
Serbia’s Nenad Zimonjic can no longer make it back-to-back mixed titles at the All England Club after he lifted the trophy alongside Sam Stosur in 2014.
Zimonjic and Australian partner Jarmila Gajdosova went out to Sweden’s Robert Linstedt and Spaniard Anabel Medina Garrigues 6-4, 7-6(3) on Court 12.
In the last eight, Lindstedt and Medina Garrigues play No.6 seeds Horia Tecau and Katarina Srebotnik who got the better of No.10 seeds Raven Klaasen and Raquel Kopes-Jones 6-3, 7-5 in 63 minutes.
