Bopanna/Qureshi overwhelm Fleming/Murray to reach the quarters – BNP Paribas Masters 2011
Indo-Pak Express of Rohan Bopanna and Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi continues its brilliant run of the season, outplaying the unseeded British duo of Colin Fleming and Jamie Murray in the second round of the BNP Paribas Masters on Thursday
evening.
The seventh ranked duo took one hour and fourteen minutes of play to wrap up victory in straight sets, 6-4, 6-3, to book a berth in the quarter-finals of the ATP (Association of Tennis Professionals) World Tour 1000 event.
It was 35th victory for Bopanna and Qureshi in doubles encounters in the current year. They have already bagged two ATP championship titles this season and their impactful start on Thursday evening clearly depicts that
they are well up another one in Paris. The seventh seeded duo faced limited resistance from the Britons in the contest and drove them out with the utmost ease to move into the round of eight.
The Indo-Pak Express has already booked a berth in the prestigious ATP World Tour Finals in London later this month and a championship victory at the Paris Masters will give it the necessary momentum for the grand finale.
Bopanna and Qureshi bettered their opponents in every segment of the game and never allowed the Britons to come on top. They delivered just 54 per cent of their first serve on target but dropped merely three points on it, clinching
26 out of 29, en route to victory. The seventh seeded duo crafted a total of eight break points in the matchup and converted three of them to come out as the winner. Fleming and Murray recorded just one out of three breaks of serve in the entire contest to
finish on the losing side in the end.
The opener witnessed a steady start from both sides but a trade of three successive serve breaks were seen towards the end, with Bopanna and Qureshi closing out the first set at 6-4. Only one break point conversion in the sixth
game proved sufficient for the seventh seeded duo to finish off the matchup at 6-3.
Bopanna and Qureshi will take on the world number two team of Michael Llodra of France and Nenad Zimonjic of Serbia, in the quarter-final round to fight for a berth in the semis. Llodra and Zimonjic were victorious against the
unseeded pair of Eric Butorac from the United States and Jean-Julien Rojer of Curacao, in a hard-fought encounter in the second round of the Paris Masters.
Tags: