Mahesh Bhupathi and Leander Paes win the Sony Ericsson Open Men’s Doubles title
Third seeded Indian pair of Mahesh Bhupathi and Leander Paes bounced back to win against the 2nd seeds Max Mirnyi and Daniel Nestor (5)6-7, 6-2, 10-5 in the final of the 2011 Sony Ericsson Open at Miami on Saturday.
The Indian tandem had a bumpy ride to the finals after winning last two matches in troublesome three sets. They overpowered 6thseeded pair of French Michael Llodra and Serb Nenad Zimonjic in the quarters. In the semis they rallied past unseeded pair of Austrian Oliver Marach and Serb Janko Tipsarevic, who upset the top seeded Bryan brothers in the second round, to reach this spot.
The Belarusian Canadian pair of Mirnyi and Nestor on the other side of net cruised to final in straight sets except from losing one set from the first round. They destroyed Ukrainian – Russian pair of Sergiy Stakhovsky and Mikhail Youzhny, 8th seeded pair of Swede Robert Lindstedt and Romanian Horia Tecau and 4th seeds, Austrian Jurgen Melzer and German Philipp Petzschner, all without losing a set and by earning either a bagel or a breadstick to reach the final spot.
The winning combination of the Indian pair hand now won their 25th career title and their win loss record is 12-3. Paes has now won this title for the second time after winning it last year with Lukas Dlouhy, while Bhupathi hold his first career title here. Bhupathi told the press, “The key [to us winning] was just fighting as a team. Like Leander said, we didn’t play our best match of the week. All four of us were tentative in the beginning.”
The Belarusian Canadian duo had an awesome start as they had a much better first serve share of 80 percent as compared to Indian’s 59 percent. Furthermore they saved four breakpoints and converted one out of four opportunities to their advantage but they lost one serve to the Indians and took the set to tiebreaker. Mirnyi and Nestor clearly were the better ones and after prevailing in the tiebreaker they clinched the set with a 7-6(5) win.
Bhupathi and Paes got back on track in the second set after re-forming themselves. They improved their co-ordination and clobbered less double faults. In addition to this, they had a much better first serve share of 86 percent as opposed to their rivals’ 62 percent and saved the only breakpoint. The Indian seeded pair then found five breakpoint opportunities and converted two to their advantage to win the set with a 6-2 score line.
In the super tiebreaker, the Indians clearly outplayed Mirnyi and Nestor with their awesome tact and agility to eventually win the final set with a 10-5 score line.
This is the Indians second title this season after winning the first in their hometown, Chennai. This victory makes the Indian duo number one in ATP doubles ranking.
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