Australian Open 2024: India's Sriram Balaji reaches men's doubles second round with his Romanian partner Victor Vlad Cornea

India's N Sriram Balaji and Romania's Victor Vlad Cornia reached the second round of the men's doubles at the Australian Open 2024 on Friday.

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Balaji-Cornia defeated Italy's Matteo Arnaldi and Andrea Pellegrino 6-3, 6-4. In the next round, the Indo-Romanian pair will face tenth seeds Marcelo Arevalo of El Salvador and Mate Pavic of Croatia.

Balaji and cornia have entered the Australian Open 2024 as an alternate pair. Balaji is ranked 79th and cornia is ranked 69th in the ATP doubles rankings. Balaji has reached the second round of the Australian Open for the second time. Last year, he had won in the first round with Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan of India. He reached the second round at the 2018 Wimbledon with compatriot Vishnu Vardhan.

In another men's doubles match, Rohan Bopanna-Matthew Ebden pair also advanced to the second round of the Australian Open 2024 with a 6-2, 6-4 win over Australia's John Millman and Edward Winter. The Indo-Australian pair will face Wesley Koolhoof of Netherlands and Nikola Mektic of Croatia in the second round.

Also Read: Australian Open 2024: Sumit Nagal's history-making campaign ends as he loses to Shang Juncheng in second round

Earlier on Thursday, Sumit Nagal, coming off his impressive first-round win at the Australian Open 2024, lost to Chinese tennis prodigy Juncheng Shang, ending his run at the first major of the season. Nevertheless, Nagal exits Melbourne Park with good memories, having made the main draw through the qualifiers and taking home nearly Rs 98 lakh, an amount that should take care of most of his 2024 Tour budget. In addition, Nagal became the first Indian to reach the second round of the Australian Open after 11 years.