LAHORE
Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi and Rohan Bopanna faced a tough resistance from the Russian top star Mikhail Youzhny (currently world no. 9) and Sergiy Stakhovsky, the no. 1 player of Ukraine (currently world no. 37) in the opening round of St. Petersburg ATP World Rating Tennis Championship being played in the indoor courts of Petersburgsky, Russia.
Due to an increase in the top singles players participating in doubles events, the technicalities of the game are changing drastically. Powerful returns and winners from the baseline by the top singles players are replacing the traditional doubles game of tennis in which lobs and small drops are characteristic.
Thanks to the matching groundstrokes of Aisam and Rohan, they are meeting these new challenges of the game and giving the ‘singles experts’ a run for their money. Aisam & Rohan played superb tennis during the first set, which was played on the centre court and in front of a large crowd. They served well and returned on the same high level.
They conceded only four points in the entire first set on their own service games and hit sizzling winners on their opponent’s serves thus breaking their service game twice to take the first set with a 6-2 score. Things were moving quite well in the second set too when suddenly at 2-2, 40-0 Rohan hit two double faults followed by a missed volley which exposed him to an add score of 40-40.
Here he missed his first serve and Youzhny was too good on the return off the second serve, which resulted in a break of serve for the Indo-Pak Express. This suddenly changed the momentum of the game as the Russians became bullish and went on to win the second set with a matching score of 6-2.
Normally the team winning the second set has the momentum in their favour during the Super Tie Breaker but Aisam and Rohan bounced back brilliantly. While comfortably holding their own serves, Aisam displayed exquisite return of serves as well and got a mini break on every return point that he faced.
While serving for the match at 9-3 Rohan made no mistake in serving out and the Indo-Pak Express won 6-2, 2-6, 10-3. Aisam and Rohan hit two aces and two double faults while Youzhny and Stakhovsky hit three aces and a double fault.
