Indo Pak express battle past Melo/Soares into final eight – Erste Bank Open 2011
The Indo Pak duo of Rohan Bopanna and Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi made an epic comeback to overpower Brazilians, Marcelo Melo and Bruno Soares in three sets at the Erste Bank Open 2011, an indoor hard court tournament taking place at
the Weiner Stadthalle in Vienna, Austria. They registered a 2-6, 7-6(1), 10-4 victory over the Brazilians to secure a last eight spot on Wednesday.
Bopanna/Qureshi repeated Sunday’s If Stockholm Open final which the Indo Pak Express prevailed to clinch with a 6-1, 6-3 score line. After earning this victory, they not only stayed on course to qualify for the Barclays ATP World
Tour Final but also levelled the head-to-head series by 2-2 against Melo and Soares.
The lower ranked Brazilians made quick in-roads after breaking their opponents’ serve twice. They warded off all three breakpoints came across and converted two out of five breakpoint opportunities to their advantage to clinch
the opener with a 6-2 score line. Melo and Soares clobbered a higher first serve share of 82 percent as compared to their opponents’ 72 percent and jolted down a fabulous 78 percent win on it.
Ranked 7th in the ATP World Tour Doubles rankings, Bopanna and Qureshi failed to find the right path in the second set. They lost two early serves and went 5-2 down. However, they showed their class and fought back hard
to snatch their breaks back and levelled the scores at 5-5. The set eventually went to a tie-breaker where the Indo Pak team dominated to seal the equaliser with a 7-6(1) win. They clobbered a slightly lower first serve share of 66 percent as compared to Melo
and Soares’ 69 percent but registered a magnificent 70 percent win on it.
In the super tie-breaker, the Indian Pakistani tandem clobbered a slightly lower first serve share of 57 percent as compared to their rivals’ 71 percent but earned a perfect win on it. Bopanna and Qureshi made their presence felt
everywhere and eventually pocketed the decider with a 10-4 score line.
Next up for the winning combination of Bopanna and Qureshi is the fourth seeded Polish pair of Mariusz Frystenberg and Marcin Matkowski.
The seeded Polish tandem bounced past Argentinean Brazilian pair of Juan Ignacio Chela and Andrea Sa in one and half hour on their first meeting. They brushed off two out of three breakpoints faced and capitalised on three out
of nine breakpoint chances to their advantage and sealed the deal with a 6-7(5), 6-2, 10-6 score line.
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