LAHORE – Pakistan’s Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi and India’s Rohan Bopanna were in an absolutely ruthless form as they thrashed the second seeded team of Canadian Daniel Nestor and Belarusian Max Mirny, who are both former World No 1 doubles players, 6-1, 7-5 at the Princess Court in the Monte Carlo Tennis Complex where the ATP Masters Rolex Cup Tennis Championship is taking place.
Max Mirny has three Grand Slam and 35 Masters and Tour level doubles titles under his belt, while Daniel Nestor has 5 Grand Slam and 67 Masters and Tour level titles to his credit. The Indo-Pak Express won the toss and opted to serve. At 2-1 they broke Nestor’s serve to take a 3-1 lead. They again broke their opponents’ serve, this time Mirny’s at 4-1, to take a 5-1 lead. Aisam made no mistake in closing the set 6-1 in just 21 minutes.
In the second set, they broke Nestor’s serve at 1-1 to take a 2-1 lead but were immediately broken back and leveled to 2-2. They again broke their opponents at 3-3 to take a 4-3 lead. Later, Nestor and Mirny struck back to level the score 5-5. The youthful duo of Aisam and Rohan continued to exert pressure with excellent serve returns and once again broke their rivals’ serve to make it 6-5.
While serving out at 6-5, the Indo-Pak Express looked vulnerable at 0-30 but they staged a return by taking the next four points to close the set and the match. They scored 6-1, 7-5 in one hour and ten minutes with the help of 3 aces. They bagged 62 points in total, while the losing side went home with 52.
Aisam and Rohan saved 6 out of 8 break points that they faced, while Nestor and Mirny saved 9 out of 14 break points. In the semi-finals, Aisam and Rohan face Juan Ignacio Chela of Argentina and Bruno Soares of Brazil.
