Qureshi and Bopanna make it to last 8 in Russia
Pakistani player Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi and his Indian doubles partner, Rohan Bopanna, also called the Indo-Pak Express in the tennis world, once again proved their mettle at yet another event, this time reaching the quarter finals of the Kremlin Cup ATP World
Championship, being held in Moscow.
The multi-national duo has recently been making headlines for multiple reasons, including but not just limited to their game and style of play. The pair first hit the news for their phenomenal performance at the 2010 US Open Tournament in Flushing Meadows,
Queens. The two players joined forces to batter their opposition, mowing down every team in their way till the final, where they fought a hard match against American brothers Bob and Mike Bryan, where they ultimately went down. However, they were still the
stars at the tournament, due to Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi’s touching speech about fraternity and peace, and the duo’s “Stop War, Start Tennis” campaign has already begun to take off in their respective countries.
At this year’s Kremlin Cup ATP World Championship, the pair has battled some great teams, and the match to determine their appearance in the quarter finals of the event was against the strong team of Leos Friedl, a former ATP Top 10 Player from the Czech
Republic, and Victor Hanescu of Romania.
The match kicked off with Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi and Rohan Bopanna cruising into a first set victory with a score of 6-1. The Indo-Pak Express dominated their opponents from the start of this set, and dictated the terms for their first triumph by breaking
Friedl and Hanescu’s serve twice before ending the set in their favour.
However, the situation was completely reversed in the second set, with Friedl and Hanescu springing into action. They managed to break Rohan Bopanna’s serve twice, pushing the Indo-Pak Express to 1-5 at one point during the set. Qureshi and Bopanna were
able to recover their position slightly, although it was too late for them to take the set. Both players pushed themselves in this set, firing a number of magnificent return winners which ousted their opponents. They broke back at this point and held their
own serve, dragging the set up to 3-5. They continued to play well here, taking the score to 40-40 in one game after it had stayed at 0-30 at Hanescu’s serve. However, they could not prevent Hanescu from taking the set with a 6-3 win.
In the super tiebreak, Aisam-ul-Haw Qureshi and Rohan Bopanna started off the set with a huge advantage, quickly amassing three games over Friedl and Hanescu for a scoreline of 3-0. This lead was later nullified, when they lost their advantage as the Czech-Romanian
duo stepped up their own game. However, with the game at 7-8 for Friedl and Hanescu, they broke to find themselves once again in the lead with 9-8. The rest of the match passed quickly, with the Indo-Pak team winning their next point on their serve, to win
the super tiebreak as well as the match at 6-1, 3-6, 10-8. They have now qualified for the quarter finals of this event, and are one of the last 8 left in the tournament.
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