The Indian Express duo of Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi put their disappointing clay court season behind them with an upset win over the French Open champion Daniel Nestor and Max Mirnyi at the ATP Aegon Classic in Queen's Club, London.
The Indian duo won 6-7 (7-9), 7-6 (10-8), 10-8 in a match lasting 1 hour 49 minutes. They have won 2 titles this year - in Chennai and Indian Wells and lost in the finals of the Australian Open to the top-ranked duo Mike and Bob Bryan. Paes and Bhupathi will have a chance to avenge that defeat on Sunday as the Bryans also advanced to the final with an easy 6-2, 6-1 win over Marach/ Matkowski.
At the other ATP stop in Halle this week, the Indo-Pak Express of Rohan Bopanna and Aisam-Ul-Huq Qureshi also needed to work hard to reach the finals. Bopanna/ Qureshi beat Cas/ Kohlschreiber 5-7, 6-3, 11-9. This is the first final in 2011 for Bopanna/ Qureshi and they will play the duo of Robina Hasse and Milos Raonic for the title on Sunday.
Meanwhile, India's top singles players Somdev Devvarman and Sania Mirza will be tune-up for Wimbledon by playing in the combined Aegon International in Eastbourne this week. Somdev has got a direct entry into the main draw for the men and he will play the 4th seed Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, who he beat in Houston earlier this year, in the first round. Devvarman has lost his last six matches and will be looking for a morale-boosting win before heading to SW 19.
In the power-packed women's draw which includes the Williams sisters, Mirza will need to win 3 matches in the qualifying draw in order to make it into the main draw.
Finally, in New Delhi, Karunuday Singh clinched his maiden ITF singles title with a 6-4, 6-2 win over compatriot Vijayant Malik in the $10,000 ITF tournament. Malik was playing in his second ITF final this year.
No comments:
Post a Comment