Aisam, Rohan cruise into LA ATP Championship semis

LAHORE The Indo-Pak duo of Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi and Rohan Bopanna won a cliff hanger in Los Angeles ATP Championship quarter-final against Arnaud Clement of France and Jonathan Erlich of Israel. In the semi-final, they will face the World No 2 (previously World No 1) pair of Mike Bryan and Bob Bryan of USA. Being down 3-6 in the first set and 0-3 in the second, they rose from the ashes to win 14-12 in the super tie break. They were broken in the very first service game of the match and were unable to prevent a 3-6 loss of the opening set. They were again broken in the first game of the second set but fought back bravely to neutralise this disadvantage when they broke their opponents serve to level back to 3-3. Thanks largely to the much superior service return games played by Aisam, they forced their opponents to a tie break in the second set. Here again, they were a break point down in the beginning but then went on to win five points in a row to secure the set with a 7-4 score in the tie break. In the deciding super tie break, they were once again mini break down and then match point down at 7-9 but a sizzling back hand serve return winner by Rohan saved them from a collapse. The see-saw situation continued until 13-12 when Aisam was able to close the match with a 14-12 score. Aisam and Rohan were mostly struggling in the match but raised their level whenever their back was pushed to the wall. Though they hit seven aces against only by their opponents yet their overall first serve percentage was as low as 57% only due to which their opponents were able to attack their second serves more. Nevertheless, their real achievement was to save the break points. They saved four out of seven break points and their opponents saved one of two.

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