Bhupathi/Bopanna, Granollers/Lopez advance to the quarters – Internazionali BNL d’Italia 2012
Mahesh Bhupathi/Rohan Bopanna beat Daniele Bracciali/Andreas Seppi 6-2, 6-1
Seventh seed, Mahesh Bhupathi and Rohan Bopanna of India, scored a convincing victory over Italy’s Daniel Bracciali and Andreas Seppi in straight sets 6-2, 6-1 in the second round at the Internazionali BNL d’Italia in Rome, Italy
on Thursday.
The Indian duo required merely 37 minutes to badly thrash their opponents and move to the last eight.
Bhupathi and Bopanna made a great start, as they opened up with a 3-0 lead in the first set. Serving to stay in the set at 2-5, Bracciali and Seppi could not hold their serve and lost it 2-6.
Just like the opener, the Indian team broke their opponents in the second game of the second set and consolidated on it to move ahead 3-0. Bhupathi and Bopanna allowed the Italians to win only one game this time, hitting a blow
again in the sixth and serving it out at 5-1.
The Indians bombarded a total of six aces and 70 percent of the first serves on Bracciali and Seppi, claiming 25 of the 33 points on them in the match. They avoided all the five break threats they came across and utilised four
of the five opportunities of their own.
Bhupathi and Bopanna will lock horns with top seeded pair of Max Mirnyi and Daniel Nestor in the quarter-final.
Marcel Granollers/Marc Lopez defeat Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi/Alexander Peya7-5, 7-6(2)
Spain’s Marcel Granollers and Marc Lopez surprised eight seeds, Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi and Alexander Peya, in straight sets 7-5, 7-6(2) to advance to the quarter-finals.
Granollers/Lopez and Qureshi/Peya served extraordinarily in the first 10 games of the opening set, as they did not get broken and levelled the score at 5-5. The Spaniards broke the deadlock, striking a blow to the Pakistani-Austrian
pair in the 11th game to go up 6-5 and capitalising on the advantage to close it 7-5.
Qureshi and Peya started off quite well in the second set, snatching a break in the fourth game to attain a 3-1 lead. However, the Spanish combination did not take much time to equalise the score at 3-3. The rest of the set went
with serves, taking the score to 6-6 and forcing a tie-breaker. The clay court experts, Granollers and Lopez, allowed their opponents to claim just two points and sealed it 7-6(2). The match lasted for one hour and 51 minutes.
The Spaniards are drawn to meet French-Serbian duo of Michael Llodra and Nenad Zimonjic, seeded third at the event, in the quarters. Llodra and Zimonjic received a walkover against Nicolas Almagro and Pablo Andujar in the third
round.
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