Leander Paes in semifinals of ATP in Geneva

The Indo-American combination of Paes and Lipsky will challenge the top seeds Jean-Julien Rojer of the Netherlands and Horia Tecau of Romania in the semifinals.

Paes and teammate moved to the semis following a walkover from Rogerio Dutra Silva of Brazil and Paolo Lorenzi

Leander Paes in partnership with Scott Lipsky of the US moved into the doubles semifinals of the €540,310 ATP Tour event in Geneva, following a walkover from Rogerio Dutra Silva of Brazil and Paolo Lorenzi of Italy on Thursday.

The Indo-American combination will challenge the top seeds Jean-Julien Rojer of the Netherlands and Horia Tecau of Romania in the semifinals.

Meanwhile, Ankita Raina asserted her strong game against sixth seed Jing Jing Lu of China for a 6-2, 5-7, 6-3 victory in the pre-quarterfinals of the $60,000 ITF women’s event in Luan.

In a battle of wits, Ankita converted 10 of 22 breakpoints that she forced, which helped her dictate the flow despite dropping serve seven times.

Ankita failed to capitalise on a clutch of breakpoints and subsequently a gamepoint to force the tie-break in the second set, in which she had trailed 3-5. In the decider, Ankita took a 3-0 lead, and kept breaking the Chinese serve thereafter to gather her next three games for victory.

“I am not only happy with today’s win, but also the way I played. I had chances in the second set which I didn’t capitalise, but I learnt from it”, said Ankita, understandably delighted with the victory.

Having lost early in doubles, it was a welcome victory for Ankita, who had won the doubles title with Emily Webley-Smith of Britain in Hua Hin about a fortnight earlier.

“Emily left only this morning. We have been training together before this week since we lost early last week. So we came and got a few days of practice here”, said Ankita.

In the semifinals, the 24-year-old Ankita, ranked 321, will face third seed Fangzhou Liu of China.

The results:

€540,310 ATP Tour, Geneva, Switzerland Doubles (quarterfinals): Scott Lipsky (US) & Leander Paes w.o Rogerio Dutra Silva (Bra) & Paolo Lorenzi (Ita).

$60,000 ITF women, Luan, China Singles (pre-quarterfinals): Ankita Raina bt Jing Jing Lu (Chn) 6-2, 5-7, 6-3.

$15,000 ITF men, Singapore Singles (first round): Vijay Sundar Prashanth bt Jui-Chen Hung (Tpe) 6-1, 6-3. Doubles (pre-quarterfinals): Francis Case Alcantara (Phi) & Sem Verbeek (Ned) bt Sidharth Rawat & Dalwinder Singh 6-4, 6-2.

$15,000 ITF men, Santa Margarida de Montbui, Spain Doubles (quarterfinals): Erik Crepaldi (Ita) & Benjamin Lock (Zim) bt Bogdan Djurdjevic (Ger) & Venkata Gnana Bhaskar Paramatmuni 6-1, 6-1.