Fleming through, Delgado and Skupski out in Marseille

By Philip James

Fleming/Bopanna(2) 6-4 6-3 Hasse/Norman

Janowicz/Nielsen 7-5 7-5 Delgado Skupski

Colin Fleming and his partner Rohan Bopanna safely progressed to round two of the Open 13 tournament in Marseille today, but Jamie Delgado and Ken Skupski were eliminated.

Fleming and Bopanna, with doubles rankings of 26th and 12th respectively, are the number two seeds and made short work of the Dutch-Belgian team of Robin Hasse and Dick Norman.

The Scottish-Indian pairing, teaming up due to injury to Jonathan Marray, had a 68% first serve percentage and broke their opponents four times to win 6-4 6-2 in 52 minutes.

Norman, 41, has a doubles ranking of 92 while his 25-year-old partner Hasse is ranked just inside the top 50 in both singles and doubles.

In round two Fleming and Bopanna  will play either American James Cerretani  & Canadian Adil Shamasdin or the Polish-Czech team of Tomasz Bednarek & Lukas Rosol, who play on Wednesday.

Birmingham’s Delgado and Liverpool’s Skupski fared less well, losing 7-5 7-5 to Wimbledon doubles champion Fredrik Nielsen and singles specialist Jerzy Janowicz.

The Brits got off to a fast start taking an early break before the Danish-Polish pairing pegged them back, recovering to win in just under 70 minutes, aided by nine double faults.

This was Delgado and Skupski ‘s last match together before Delgado returns to the UK for treatment for a long-standing back problem and Skupski takes time out to become a father.

On Wednesday Jamie Murray and Australian John Peers join the Marseille doubles action with a tough first round tie against Johan Brunstrom and Raven Klaasen.

The Swedish-South African pairing are in fine form, narrowly losing in the final of the ATP 250 Open Sud de France in Montpellier two weeks ago before beating Delgado and Skupski last week in the Challenger final in Quimper.

Meanwhile in Memphis, Londoner Dominic Inglot and Filipino Treat Huey start their campaign at the U.S. National Indoor Tennis Championships later this evening.

They play face the seasoned doubles pairing of Australia’s Paul Hanley and Jamie Murray’s old partner, American Eric Butorac in round one.

Picture Credit: shinya (Creative Commons Licence)