America
Paes to face Bopanna in US Open semis
New York, Sep 8
Doubles tennis aces Leander
Paes and Rohan Bopanna have ensured that at least one Indian will play
the final of the US Open after both reached the mixed doubles semifinals
where they will play against each other.
Bopanna and Yung-Jan
Chan of Chinese Taipei had to earn a hard fought three-set win over
Chinese Taipei-Finnish pair of Su-Wei Hsieh and Henri Kontinen. The
second seeds won the quarterfinal 7-6(7), 5-7, 13-11 in an hour and 50
minutes on Court 17 of the Flushing Meadows here on Monday.
After
sharing the first two sets, Chan and Bopanna held their nerve at the
right moment to beat the unseeded Hsieh and Kontinen in the super
tie-break.
Overall, the seconds seeds were the better pair during
the 110-minute encounter. Bopanna and Chan served 18 aces to that of
five of their opponents. Also at 50, they had 23 more winners than the
unseeded combine.
Later in another quarterfinal, fourth seeds
Paes and Swiss Martina Hingis were given a walkover by Romanian pair of
Simona Halep and Horia Tecau.
Much earlier in the day at the
Louis Armstrong Stadium, Bopanna also advanced to the men's doubles
quarterfinals with Romanian partner Florin Mergea. The sixth seeds took
two hours and four minutes to beat Canadian-French ninth seeds Daniel
Nestor and Edouard Roger-Vasselin 6-7(4), 6-4, 6-3 in Round 3.
After
losing the first set tie-break, Bopanna and Mergea came back strongly
to win a breakpoint chance in the second set which was enough to seal
the deal and push the match into the decider.
They were even
better -- both at the net and baseline -- in the third set where they
broke Nestor and Roger-Vasselin twice to easily win the set and match,
and advance into the last eight stage.
The sixth seeds will next take on British-Swede pairing of Dominic Inglot and Robert Lindstedt for a place in the semis.
In
the junior category, Karman Kaur Thandi won her girls singles first
round by beating German 16th seed Katharina Hobgarski 6-3, 7-6(3).
She
returned to play the girls doubles first round with Greek Eleni
Christofi, expecting a similar result, but went down to Australian duo
of Kimberly Birrell and Maddison Inglis 3-6, 5-7.
Indian 15th seed Pranjala Yadlapalli also lost her girls singles first round to Greek Valentini Grammatikopoulou 6-7(1), 3-6.