Bhupathi/Paes outplay Llodra/Zimonjic to win title – Western & Southern Open 2011
Third seeds Mahesh Bhupathi and Leander Paes of India captured their second ATP World Tour Masters 1000 event of the season as they dismissed fourth seeds Michael Llodra of France and Nenad Zimonjic of Serbia in straight sets 7-6(4),
7-6(2) in the final at the Western and Southern Open in Cincinnati on Sunday. The Indians took one hour and 41 minutes to defeat their opponents.
Bhupathi/Paes and the French/Serbian team won their service games throughout the first set, equalising the score at 6-6 and forcing a tie-break. The Indians took an early lead in the tie-break as they claimed a mini-break on the
opening point. Bhupathi and Paes grabbed another mini-break later in the tie-break to win it 7-4.
The Indians served quite well as they claimed fifteen of the 21 first service points and fifteen of the seventeen second service points in the opening set. The right-handers saved all the three break points they faced but also
failed to capitalise on the four break points they received on Llodra and Zimonjic’s serve in the first set.
In a similar fashion to the opening set, neither of the two teams was able to break other’s serve, levelling the score at 6-6 and taking the set to a tie-break. Paes and Bhupathi outclassed the French/Serbian duo in the tie-break,
bagging three mini-breaks and sealing it 7-2.
The Indians kept on winning easy service points, capturing 23 of 28 points on the first serve in the second set. Paes and Bhupathi delivered a couple of aces and sealed six of the 23 first return points in the second set.
Talking to the reporters during the post match press conference, Paes said, “If you had asked me 10 years ago if we would win here again 10 years later, I would have started laughing that we’d still be playing. It’s a great feeling
to come back and win in the summer. We didn’t have so much rhythm in Europe, but we managed to put it together this week. We’ve beat some really big teams and are playing well. For us, it’s a big confidence booster for the US Open, but we still have a lot
of work to do there.”
His partner added, “They are the hottest team and we had to play our best match of the year to beat them.”
Bhupathi and Paes captured their third title of the season. Their first two titles came at the Aircel Chennai Open and Sony Ericsson Open. The Indians have also grabbed their second title in Cincinnati. Their only previous title
here came back in 2001.
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