Bhupathi/Bopanna battle past Mirnyi/Nestor into the last four-stage – ATP World Tour Finals 2012
Indian tandem of Mahesh Bhupathi and Rohan Bopanna stormed into the semi-finals by dismissing the second seeds and defending champions, Max Mirnyi and Daniel Nestor, in their do-or-die final Group B match at the Barclays ATP World
Tour Finals in London.
The entire match did not see any team breaking the other even once till the end. The Indian duo handled the pressure in the match tie-breaker to clinch the contest 7-6(5), 6-7(5), 10-5 in one hour and 54 minutes.
Bopanna is featuring at this indoor hard court event for the second straight season. Last year, he qualified with his Pakistani partner, Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi, but lost all three of his matches. However, he and his compatriot, Bopanna,
have finished their three round robin matches with a 2-1 win/loss record this year, upsetting the fourth seeded team of Robert Lindstedt and Horia Tecau, in their previous match.
In the latest contest, Bhupathi/Bopanna and Mirnyi/Nestor held all of their serves in the first set to equalise the score at 6-6 and force a tie-breaker. The Indian pair was 1-4 down after first five points but then turned it around
to win 7-6(5).
Second set was exactly similar to the first, as none of the two teams managed to break the other till the end, levelling the proceedings at 6-6 and taking it to a tie-breaker. This time around, it was the Indian combination which
gained a 4-1 advantage but Mirnyi and Nestor claimed six of the following seven points to clinch it 7-6(5).
Both teams went neck to neck in the first four points of the super tie-breaker but then Bhupathi and Bopanna grabbed the control, pocketing six of the subsequent seven points to triumph 10-5.
Bhupathi said in an interview after the match, "Bops is used to serving that many aces every day, but for me it was good. I tried to be aggressive on my serve from the first point. We had to play a high quality match to win today
and we managed to do that."
Bopanna added, "It's my first semi-finals and it feels great. We are ready for whoever we play in the semi-finals."
Meanwhile, Jonathan Marray and Frederik Nielsen lost to Robert Lindstedt and Horia Tecau but they had already qualified for the semi-finals as the number one team from Group B. Opponents of these two teams will be decided after
the last two round robin matches of Group A.
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