Marray/Nielsen edge Bhupathi/Bopanna in the opener – ATP World Tour Finals 2012
Seeded eight at the event, British-Danish tandem of Jonathan Marray and Frederik Nielsen saved two match points to upset the fifth seeds from India, Mahesh Bhupathi and Rohan Bopanna, in their first match at the Barclays ATP World
Tour Finals in London.
Marray and Nielsen captured the first set but wasted a match point in the second one to lose it but then controlled their nerves in the match tie-breaker to win the encounter 6-4, 6-7(1), 12-10 in one hour and 36 minutes.
The British-Danish duo qualified for the event courtesy to their Wimbledon winning performance and top-20 finish in the Race. Playing in just their sixth tour level event together, they were facing inform Indian team, which just
captured the BNP Paribas Masters title in Paris.
There was no threat for the servers in the first nine games and the score was taken to 5-4 in favour of Marray and Nielsen. However, Bhupathi and Bopanna could not continue with the trend in the 10th one, dropping their
serve to lose the opener 4-6.
In the second set, none of the two teams created any break opportunity in the first 10 games, levelling the score at 5-5. Then both pairs faced a sudden death deuce in the following two but put away the threat to take it to a tie-breaker.
Bhupathi and Bopanna were near error free after that, as they dropped only one point and captured it 7-6(1).
The Indian pair started the match tie-breaker in the same way they had ended the second set, winning five of the opening six points to grab a 5-1 advantage. Though, Marray and Nielsen freshened up the memories of their Wimbledon
fight backs, as they clinched six of the subsequent eight to level it at 7-7. The British-Danish combination saved two match points at 8-9 and 10-11 but saved both of them and went on to win it 12-10.
Marray said, “Obviously we got off to a bit of a slow start. They served really well and hit their spots on the serve. It was kind of difficult to get into that. But we kind of dug deep and stuck in there. Obviously, you know,
found a way with a few strange little points to get back into the match tie-break."
Nielsen added, “In doubles, especially at this level, it comes down to key points here and there, how you use the momentum of those points. They saved the match point at 6-5 [in the second set] and they built on that momentum.”
Marray and Nielsen will lock horns with the second seeds, Max Mirnyi and Daniel Nestor, in their second round robin match on Wednesday.
Tags: