Leander Paes and his new partner Janko Tipsarevic survived some anxious moments before emerging a 6-3, 4-6, 10-7 winners over the Canadian pair of Vasek Pospisil and Milos Raonic in the opening round of their doubles match in the Chennai Open here at the Nungabakkam Stadium on Wednesday.
Soon after this win, Paes’ former partner Mahesh Bhupathi and his Bangalore mate Rohan Bopanna staged a superb comeback to script a 5-7, 6-3, 10-5 win over Belgium-British pair of Xavier Malisse and Ken Skupski and booked their place in the quarterfinal.
Broken in the first game of the opening set on Bopanna’s serve, the Indian pair fought well to stay in the set by breaking Skupski in the 11th game. But Bhupathi was broken in the next game as the set slipped away from the home pair.
In the second and third, though, the two brought all their experience to the fore to get their season off to a sound start.
The scenes at the Centre Court, expectedly, were starkly different for Paes compared to last year when he took the court alongside Bhupathi.
Rows of empty seats, as against the crowded stadium the previous year, greeted the Indian as he emerged out of the players’ locker room along with Tipsarevic.
The lack of spectators, however, did little to dampen the spirits the veteran and his younger partner. Sharing the court for the first time, the Indo-Serbian combine showed good understanding to overcome some tricky moments and storm into the last-eight stage.
It was a relatively easy for the third-seeded pair in the opening set.
Just when the Canadians, the replacements for Indo-Philippines duo of Somdev Devvarman and Treat Conard Huey, appeared to be settling into a nice rhythm, their opponents stepped on the gas and had back-to-back breaks while holding a serve in between to clinch the opening set.
In the second set, however, Raonic and Pospisil came out stronger and pushed their fancied rivals in a spot with a big game.
Booming serves
Raonic, coming on the back of singles win just a few hours ago, was the game-changer with his booming serves and solid ground strokes. The Canadians attacked Paes’ serves and even managed to break the seasoned campaigner in the seventh game, riding on which they brought parity and pushed the match into Super tie-breaker.
Given Raonic’s unplayable serves, he and Pospisil held a distinct advantage over Paes and Tipsarevic but the Indian ace’s experience proved a decisive factor in the final set.
The 38-year-old was simply brilliant at the net, exhibiting his trademark anticipation and alacrity. With the small but vociferous crowd firmly behind them, Paes-Tipsarevic pulled off mini-breaks in the 6th, 14th and 17th games to seal the game.
Results: Doubles (Quarterfinal, prefix denotes seeding): Jonathan Erlich/ Andy Ram (Isr) bt Nicolas Almagro/ Pere Riba (Esp) 6-3, 6-3.
First round: 1-Mahesh Bhupathi/ Rohan Bopanna (Ind) bt Xavier Malisse (Bel)/ Ken Skupski (Bri) 5-7, 6-3, 10-5; 3-Leander Paes (Ind)/ Janko Tipsarevic (Ser) bt Vasek Pospisil/ Milos Raonic (Can) 6-3, 4-6, 10-7; Juan Sebastian Cabal/ Robert Farah (Col) bt Alexander Kudryavtsev (Rus)/ Olivier Rochus 6-4, 6-4.