It was the maiden title as a pair for the fourth-seeded
Rohan Bopanna and his French partner Edouard Roger-Vasselin as they beat Jamie
Murray of Britain and John Peers of Australia 7-6(5), 6-4 in the doubles final
of the $1,437,800 Rakuten Japan Open tennis championship in Tokyo on Sunday.
Coming after the big title for Sania Mirza in Beijing, and
the fine run of Leander Paes, not to forget the quality work by Somdev
Devvarman, it was a perfect ending to a fine week for Indian tennis in the big
league.
Having played so brilliantly against the Bryan twins, Bob
and Mike, in the semifinals of Wimbledon that they had lost in five sets,
Bopanna and partner were bound to come good, and they stepped up in time to
heat up the race for the season ending World Championship in London, for the
elite eight teams.
After missing four breakpoints in the fourth game of the
first set, Bopanna and Roger-Vasselin clinched a mini break for a 4-3 lead in
the tie-break and pulled through. In the second set, the fourth-seeded
Indo-French pair broke for a 2-1 lead and served sharp to cruise to the title in
an hour and 18 minutes.
It was a fabulous effort by the duo as it had to endure two
super tie-breaks in the first two matches, and had in fact saved a matchpoint
against Andre Begemann and Martin Emmrich of Germany in the quarterfinals.
The
title was worth 500 ATP points and $92,200.
It was the second title of the season and ninth overall from
25 finals for the 33-year-old Bopanna, who was ranked a career-high No.3 in
July. For the 29-year-old Frenchman, it was the third doubles title of the
season and sixth overall from seven finals.
‘’We started playing together after Wimbledon, so we knew
that the battle to qualify for London would be hard. We would have to do well
at the big tournaments in Shanghai and Paris’’, Bopanna was quoted as saying by
the ATP.
It will be tough for the Indo-French duo in Shanghai, as the
sixth seeds, after a bye in the first round, are likely to run into Max Mirnyi
and Horia Tecau who won the China Open to strengthen their own chances to
qualify for London. Bopanna and Roger-Vasselin figure in the top quarter with
the Bryan twins as the top seed.
Leande Paes who has already confirmed his berth for the
World Championship with Radek Stepanek of the Czech Republic after winning the
US Open title, has been seeded third with Daniel Nestor of Canada in Shanghai,
with a bye in the first round in a draw of 32.
Meanwhile, in the singles qualifying event of the $6,211,445
Shanghai Open, Somdev Devvarman was beaten in the second and final qualifying
round 7-6(6), 6-0 by Tatsuma Ito of Japan, after he had beaten wild card Liu
Siyu of China 6-1, 4-6, 6-1 in the first round.
For making the final qualifying round, Somdev collected 16
ATP points and $3,120.
Divij Sharan fights
in singles qualifying in $125K Tashkent Challenger
TASHKENT, OCT. 6:
The sixth-seeded Divij Sharan went down fighting 6-7(7),
6-7(3) to wild card Alessandro Motti of Italy in the first qualifying round of
the $125,000 Challenger tennis tournament on Saturday.
In doubles, Divij Sharan and Purav Raja were seeded second
and drawn to play Andrea Arnaboldi and Thomas Fabbiano of Italy in the
pre-quarterfinals.
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