Paes-Bhupathi keep Indian hopes alive
The Indian tennis duo Mahesh Bhupathi and Leander Paes have registered their twenty fourth Davis Cup doubles victory in a row to keep their side afloat in the Davis Cup World Group play-off tie versus Brazil,
lessening the margin of the tie to 1-2 on Saturday.
The ‘Indian Express’ faced quite difficult competition from the Brazilian duo Melo-Soares before claiming a three setter victory. The final match score was 6-4 7-6(5) 6-1. The clash concluded in a time period
of two hours and nineteen minutes.
The Indian duo prevented a total of four set points after trailing 1-4 during the tie-break of the second set to earn a comprehensive lead of 2-0 before claiming the victory.
Leander, who completed a total of twenty years in the Davis Cup tennis tournament, served out the match for his country.
India came to the doubles clashes after a disappointing singles loss of the 2010 United States Open doubles runner up, Rohan Bopanna and Somdev Devvarman, who were fallen down in tight matches on Friday.
Now Rohan Bopanna and Somdev Devvarman, will have to win both of the singles clashes on Sunday if India wants to progress in to the World Group.
Devvarman will play the first reverse singles rubber versus the world number twenty seven, Thomaz Bellucci where as Rohan will meet Ricardo Mello, a seventy fifth ranked player in the world.
The Indian side had reached the elite World Group after a total of eleven complete years defeating South Africa in an away tie previous season, however was taken down in the opening round by Russia to be
relegated to the play-off tournament.
In case, the host contenders do not win their respective singles clashes on Sunday, India will be once again back to Asia/Oceania Zone Group I.
Brazil on the other hand, have not reached the World Group for the last seven years and have also failed to clear the play-off trouble in the previous few trials.
Leander and Mahesh, despite not playing together so much on the ATP circuit, were as strong a force as they were before separating and completely outclassed their Brazilian opponents on the court today.
The Brazilians had a slow start in today’s match however slowly gained momentum and played some tough tennis, thereby managing to extend the match to a total of three sets in the end.
The experienced Indians on the other hand looked to dominate right from the start and didn’t give easy break points and as a result won the battle in the end.
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