The big-serving Rohan Bopanna, in partnership with Marcin Matkowski of Poland, prevailed over Leander Paes and Guillermo Garcia-Lopez of Spain 6-3, 3-6, 10-6 in the semifinals of the $2,617,160 ATP Tour event in Dubai on Friday.
It was the first time that Bopanna and Paes were on the same court after the Rio Olympics in which they were beaten in the first round.
Bopanna had not made the dash to Pune from Bengaluru for the last tie against New Zealand, when Saketh Myneni pulled out at the last minute owing to a foot injury. Paes and Vishnu Vardhan lost the doubles rubber in four sets.
With the Davis Cup selection likely to be made shortly, the strong performance of both Bopanna and Paes should be a good augury for the team for the tie against Uzbekistan scheduled to be held in April.
The newly inducted Davis Cup captain Mahesh Bhupathi had made it clear that the choice of the team, in terms of having two doubles specialists or one, would depend on various factors.
Meanwhile, top seed Ramkumar Ramanathan crashed out of singles in the ITF Futures in the US, in the second round. He, however, made the doubles final.
In Egypt, the Sood twins, Chandril and Lakshit, made the men’s doubles final while, Kyra Shroff in partnership with Estelle Cascino of France was beaten in the women’s doubles semifinals.
The results:
$2,617,160 ATP, Dubai
Doubles (semifinals): Marcin Matkowski (Pol) & Rohan Bopanna bt Guillermo Garcia-Lopez (Esp) & Leander Paes 6-3, 3-6, 10-6.
$15,000 ITF men, Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt
Doubles (semifinals): Chandril Sood and Lakshit Sood bt Wilfredo Gonzalez (Gua) and Federico Zeballos (Bol) 6-2, 4-6, 10-4.
$15,000 ITF men, Orlando, U.S.
Singles (pre-quarterfinals): Ante Pavic (Cro) bt Ramkumar Ramanathan 6-3, 6-4.
Doubles (semifinals): Jaume Pla Malfeito (Esp) & Ramkumar Ramanathan beat Hunter Callahan& Tam Trinh (U.S.) 7-5, 3-6, 12-10.
$15,000 ITF women, Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt
Doubles (semifinals): Veronika Kapshay (Ukr) and Julia Wachaczyk (Ger)
bt Estelle Cascino (Fra) & Kyra Shroff 6-2, 6-2.
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