Paes-Bhupathi rally into semis

Shailesh Soni

French Open champions Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi stormed into the semi-finals of the $2.95 million Masters Series, being played in Cincinnati, United States on Friday.

The sixth seeded Indians staged a grand comeback, saving six match-points to defeat the fourth seeded Czech pair of Jiri Novak and David Rikl 3-6, 7-6(12), 6-2 in a quarter-final match.

Novak and Rikl, ranked third on the ATP team doubles ranking, are currently the hottest team on the circuit, having won seven matches in a row including the title at the Montreal Masters last week.

The first set was fought very closely, with the Indians dropping serve in the fourth game. They came back to break the Czechs in the seventh game only to drop serve again in the next game and lose the set 3-6.

In the second set, the Indians had a couple of break chances early on, but could not convert them. They dropped serve in the ninth game to fall back and were facing a match-point at 30-40. At this point the they re-grouped and took the game to duece, saved three more match-points and converted their first break chance to set the stage for a brilliant comeback as the set went into a tie-breaker.

In the tie-breaker, both the teams didn't give a minibreak till 8-8, when the Indians dropped a point on their serve and faced their fifth match-point. However, they fought back to take a point off the Czechs to level at 9-9.

At 12-12, the Czechs dropped a point to give the Indians set point. Paes and Bhupathi pounced on the chance and took it to take the match into the third set.

In the third set, the Czechs started off in style holding serve at love. But the Indians had other plans as they broke back in the third and fifth games to quickly go up 5-1. They then completed formailities by serving off the game to win their third sucessive three-setter.

The Indians will now face top seeds Jonas Bjorkman and Todd Woodbridge in the semis. The top seeds got a walkover from Andrew Florent and Leyton Hewitt in their quarter-final match.

In the other semi-final, David Prinosil and Martin Damm will face Nicolas Lapentti and Jeff Tarango.

Prinosil and Damm defeated the current world No 5 team, the Bryan twins, after dropping the first set and winning the third set in a tiebreaker at 8-6.

The Indians earned 225 points for reaching the semi-finals and will move up one spot up in the team rankings to six. A win in Saturday's semi-finals will move them up to No. 5, and a title will take them to 4.

They also share $42,300 for reaching the semis and can pick up another $40,000 more for a win in the semis.

Earlier reports:
Paes-Bhupathi in last eight
Paes-Bhupathi beat Jensens