Wimbledon doubles update: Aisam and Bopanna advance into last 16
Aisam ul-Haq Qureshi, Pakistan's sole hope on the professional tennis circuit, made his way into the last 16 of the doubles event at Wimbledon. After a gruelling 3 hours and 41 minutes on court, in the afternoon heat of what has been an exceptionally warm week in London, Aisam and his partner Rohan Bopanna were up against Germany’s Phillip Marx and Igor Zelenay of Slovakia.
All four players were throwing down heavy serves from the first set. After a stalemate at 6-6, the set went into a tie breaker. Aisam and Bopanna raced into the lead by consolidating a mini-break at 2-1, and led 4-1. Both sides took their respective two service points, so Marx and Zelenay were serving to stay in the set at 3-6 in the tie break. The Europeans held their nerve and made it so Aisam and Bopanna had to serve out the set at 6-5. Here, against the run of play, the Asians were unable to win either of their service points, which meant Marx and Zelenay could serve out the set at 7-6, which they promptly did to win the set 7-6 (6).
If Aisam and Bopanna were demoralised at the manner with which they lost the first set, they did not show it. At 1-1, Aisam and Bopanna pounced to break Zelenay’s serve at 1-1, and took a 2-1 lead as a result. This buoyed the Asians greatly, and became a platform to boost their confidence. Throughout the rest of the set, thunderbolts kept raining down from all four players on serve, and neither side could conjure up any break point. Aisam and Bopanna took the set 6-4.
The third set started similarly to the second. In that all four players were relentlessly serving big. After the first round of serves, it was Marx and Zelenay under pressure at 2-2 and down 0-30 on their serve. Aisam and Bopanna had made the most of their opportunity in the previous set, and they did so again here. After breaking to lead 3-2, the Asians consolidated the break by holding their own serve. Like the second set, both sides held their own serves, allowing Aisam and Bopanna to see out the set 6-4.
The fourth set saw the intensity rise, both among the thoroughly entertained crowd and the emotions shown on court by the players. All four players raised their game beyond what had been shown already, and this led to some terrific exchanges at the net throughout the set. The first chance to break serve came to Marx and Zelenay at 5-4. On the first point, Bopanna caught the sun in his eyes as he went for a smash, and consequently missed the ball. Fortune favoured the Europeans again when Zelenay’s backhand clipped the net to skip awkwardly past Aisam. Though Aisam and Bopanna managed to pull back one point in the game, Marx and Zelenay seized on this chance to break, and sent the match into the fifth set by winning this 6-4.
The merciless serving continued throughout the fifth set, with neither team allowing the other to get even close to a break point. As the set wore on beyond 6-6, the serves from both ends became even more potent. Both the teams started to hold their respective games without dropping even a single point. There was a whiff of an opportunity when Marx and Zelenay were serving 10-10 and were down 0-30, but they held both their nerve and their serve still. The crucial moment came at 11-11, with Marx serving. In a momentary lapse of concentration, Marx served up a double fault after taking the first point. At 30-15, Bopanna sent a return sizzling past Zelenay down the line. At 30-30, the pressure told on Marx, and another double fault meant that Aisam and Bopanna had a break point at 30-40. Here, Zelenay tried to angle Bopanna’s return into a corner, but sent the ball out, meaning Aisam had a chance to serve the match out at 12-11. Despite dropping the first point, Aisam and Bopanna did not succumb to the obvious pressure, and won the set 13-11 and the match.
In the next round, they face Slovakia’s Lucas Lacko and Ukraine’s Sergiy Stakhovsky.
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