US Open 2010, Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi achieves record doubles win
Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi and his doubles and mixed doubles partners are well on their way to making history for the thirty-year old Pakistani. Already in the middle of a successful year with stellar results at Wimbledon, where he made it to the doubles quarter finals, and an ATP victory in the bag, his recent bright streak at the US Open 2010 tournament only seems to get better.
This morning, on 7th September 2010, Wednesday, Qureshi proceeded to the semi finals in both the matches he was scheduled to play. He and his partner Rohan Bopanna defeated South African Wesley Moodie and Belgian d**k Norman in straight sets, proceeding to the semi finals with this victory. In his mixed doubles match where he was paired with Kvete Peschka from the Czech Republic, Qureshi scored another victory over Germany’s Anna-Lena Groenefeld and Mark Knowles of the Bahamas. This success guarantees him and Peschka a competing spot in the US Open 2010 semi finals.
His apparently unlikely partnership with Indian Rohan Bopanna has already attracted the attention of both the political world and the tennis fan base. At opposite ends of the religious and national spectrum, the Pakistani-Indian duo sees itself as a team, eschewing politics in favour of humanity. Qureshi and Bopanna’s matches are marked by their signature aggressiveness when it comes to serving and their precise forehands.
The 16th seeded team advanced to the quarter-finals of the men’s doubles with a determined victory over Canada’s Daniel Nestor and Serbia’s Nenad Zimonjic. Nestor and Zimonjic were the second seeded team at the US Open 2010 men’s doubles. Qureshi-Bopanna beat Nestor-Zimonjic in straight sets, 6-3, 6-4.
After this success, Qureshi and Bopanna were faced by the daunting prospect of competing against the South African-Belgium Moodie and Norman, who are currently the 10th seed according to ATP’s rankings. However, Qureshi-Bopanna took the match home with their usual aplomb and finesse, again defeating the opposition in straight sets, 7-6, 7-6. This latest victory eased Qureshi and Bopanna into the semi finals of the US Open this year. In their next match, they will be pitted against unseeded Argentine team, Eduardo Schwank and Horacio Zeballos. This will be their first semi final at the US Open.
In this same tournament, Qureshi is partnering with the Czech tennis player, Kveta Peschke, for mixed doubles. This team managed to oust the eighth seeded Vania King and Horia Tecau to advance to the quarter finals. Qureshi and Peschke then proceeded to defeat Kazakhstan’s Yaroslava Shvedova and her partner, Austria’s Julian Knowle. Their progress at these quarterfinals, a win over Gisela Dulko from Argentina and Pablo Cuevas from Uruguay, promoted them to the semi finals, where they competed against Anna-Lena Groenefeld from Germany and Mark Knowles from the Bahamas. Qureshi and Peschka defeated Groenefeld and Knowles in straight sets yet again, 7-6, 7-6.
Aisam-ul-Haq is not only the first Pakistani to proceed this far in the US Open in any field, he also happens to be the first Muslim to be met with such phenomenal success in this arena. What makes his success even more remarkable is that he receives no help from the tennis federation of Pakistan and is for every purpose an independent player. Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi began playing tennis at the age of 14, and this mature age coupled with the fact that he learned the sport in a country where facilities are lacking at best and proper help for an athlete is rare, makes his success even more noticeable. In the event that he and his partners garner more victories for their respective teams, he would indeed be making history on the tennis court, either way Qureshi has already built a considerable legacy for himself as an exceptional phenomenon in the world of tennis.
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