2010 St. Petersburg Open: Thursday Doubles Review
Eight teams took to the courts of Petersburg Sports and Concert Complex as they battled it out in the four quarterfinals scheduled for the day. At the day’s end, the event came a step closer to a title win as four teams qualified
for the semi finals that are to be played later in the tournament.
The first doubles matchup of the day, in Court 1, was between the team of Serbs, Janko Tipsarevic and Viktor Troicki and the second seeded Indo-Pak Express, Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi (Pakistan) and Rohan Bopanna (India). Even though
they lost the first set 3-6 to the Serbs, Bopanna / Qureshi bounced back in the second set winning it 7-6(4). As the game entered the tie breaker, the team of Bopanna and Qureshi took a strong lead and finally won the tie breaker 10-1. This was the pair’s
second important win in the tournament, after having defeated the team of Russian Mikhail Youzhny and Ukrainian Sergiy Stakhovsky earlier in the tournament.
It was a good day for the Italians, as the team of Potito Starace and Daniele Bracciali won their quarterfinal match against the team of Kazakh Mikhail Kukushkin and Ukrainian Illya Marchenko. With Italy out of the title run in
the singles main draw, Starace and Bracciali were motivated to stay in the run so that Italy might have at least one title to her name. The Italians obtained an easy win over their opponents as they managed a straight set win with a twin set score 6-4, 6-4.
They go on to face the team of Michail Elgin and Teymuraz Gabashvili in their semi final match, scheduled for Friday, the 29th of October.
Wild card entrants and locals, Michail Elgin and Gabashvili faced the team of Taiwanese Lu Yen-Hsen and German Rainer Schuttler. The locals enjoying the home court advantage over the Taiwanese / German duo sailed their way into
the semis comfortably. They enjoyed a straight set win of 6-2, 6-4 against their opponents. Even though Yen-Hsun and Schuttler had made the top seeded team of Czech Frantisek Cermak and Slovak Michal Mertinak exit the tournament, they just did not have enough
of that good luck to continue into the quarterfinals.
As the pair of Elgin and Gabashvili battled it out with Yen-Hsun and Schuttler, the Slovaks, Filip Polasek and Igor Zeleney entered the centre court for their quarterfinal match. Seeded third in the tournament, the Slovaks met
the team of Spanish Pablo Andujar and American Michael Russell. The American / Spanish duo was humiliated on the courts as the Slovaks obtained a straight set win of 6-1, 6-3. The Slovaks go on to face the Indo-Pak express in the semi finals later in the week.
As all four quarterfinals wrapped up for the day, the scoreboard showed the four teams still in the run for the title. With two more days left in the event, fans will find out who wins the title this year, though Thursday’s results
have narrowed down the choices.
Tags: