Bopanna-Qureshi pair enter men's doubles semis in US Open

The fifth seeded Indo-Pak pair of Rohan Bopanna and Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi entered the semi-finals of the mens' doubles event of the US Open defeating the British pair of Colin Fleming and Ross Hutchins in a gruelling three-setter.

At the end of 135-minute battle, the Indo-Pak Express prevailed with scoreline reading 7-5, 2-6, 7-5 in their favour. The duo will now take on Polish pair of Marcin Matkowski and Maruisz Fyrstenberg who defeated Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi yesterday.

It has been second year in a running the Bopanna-Qureshi had done well at Flushing Meadows having reached the final in the last time eventually losing to Bryan brothers.

It was indeed a tough fight for the Indo-Pak duo but their winning percentage of 85 percent on first serves proved to be decisive.

Although the winners made more unforced errors but they also ensured that on half a dozen occasions, they were on the verge of breaking the British pair. But they were only successful on three occasions while the British pair only got four shots and converted three of them. Two of breaks they got were in the second set when Bopanna-Qureshi looked out of sorts.

The other semi-final will feature Austrian-German pair of Jurgen Melzer and Philipp Petzschner who will meet Italian pair of Simon Bollei and Fabio Fongini.

First Published: Sep 10, 2011 01:10 IST