Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi and Rohan Bopanna in Wimbledon 2010 Quarterfinals
There was another sporting first for Pakistan tennis, courtesy of Pakistan’s leading tennis player Aisam ul-Haq Qureshi. Aisam and his partner Rohan Bopanna overcame Lukas Lacko of Slovakia and Ukraine’s Sergiy Stakhovsky - both top players of their respective countries in the third round of the doubles event at Wimbledon 2010. In doing so, Aisam has become the first Pakistani in history to reach the quarterfinal stage of any event in the Wimbledon Championships.
In a match that started ahead of its original schedule due to a walkover given by a contestant in one of the earlier matches, Aisam and Bopanna collectively outclassed the hard hitting pair of Stakhovsky and Lacko who had powered through to the third round after defeating India’s Leander Paes and Lukas Dlouhy of the Czech Republic.
Aisam, Bopanna, Stakhovsky and Lacko all rained down big serves from the word ‘go’. The result was that neither side got a chance to break the serve in the opening ten games. The crucial break came in the eleventh game with Lucas Lacko serving. Aisam and Bopanna chose this moment to raise their game by adding more aggression when returning their serve. The first two points were won when heavy returns from the Indo-Pak players forced errors from the Europeans at the net. Though Lacko and Stakhovsky were able to pull two points back, they were unable to stop the Asians, who successfully broke the serve once again to gain a chance to serve the first set. This is what they duly did in the next game uneventfully.
Stakhovsky had enjoyed a successful season on grass so far, and Lacko himself was busily making waves on the tennis circuit, and neither of them was going to take this match as an easy proposition. After holding their own serve in the first game of the second set, Lacko and Stakhovsky were able to wrest a break in serve. Aisam and Bopanna were still in buoyant mood and struck back in the very next game. With powerful ground strokes and sharp reflexes at the net, Aisam and Bopanna reset parity in the second set at 2-2. At 5-5, with the crowd anticipating another break of serve saw Aisam and Bopanna delivered what the crowd wanted. Unfortunately, they were unable to consolidate the break of serve to win the set. Instead, in a complete reversal in fortunes, it was Lacko and Stakhovsky who recovered from the break in serve. They forced the set into a tie breaker, and even took an early lead with a mini-break. Aisam and Bopanna showed what they were made of and won the mini-break back. They carried on winning the tie breaker and then the set.
The third set saw Aisam and Bopanna regularly force errors from their opponents while they themselves stuck to a high level of tennis. It still took Aisam and Bopanna a couple of games to secure a lead in this set, thanks to some heavy serving from both Lacko and Stakhovsky. The break of serve came at 3-2, and with a lead in their pocket, Aisam and Bopanna never looked like giving it up. After holding their serve at 4-2, Aisam and Bopanna held their own by opening up an insurmountable lead of 5-2. By now, Stakhovsky and Lacko had lost their will to fight in the face of an opposition which was too good on the day. The match ended with Aisam and Bopanna breaking their opponents serve once again, thus ending the match with a score of 7-5, 7-6 (6) and 6-2.
In the quarter final, they will face the winner of the match between China’s Lu Yen-Hsun and Serbia’s Janko Tipsarevic against Australia’s Jurgen Melzer and Germany's Philipp Petzschner.
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