India's Rohan Bopanna and his Pakistani partner Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi maintained their winning run in the men's doubles competitions of Sydney International tennis to reach the final with a comprehensive win over Lukas Rosol and Joao Sousa at the Ken Rosewall Arena here.
The Indo-Pak pair, seeded third, won 6-1, 6-2 against Rosol and Sousa, who could do nothing against their opponents. Bopanna and Qureshi will now face Daniel Nestor and Nenad Zimonjic in Saturday's final. Bopanna and Qureshi won 69 per cent of first serve points and over 50 per cent of points when the opponent got their first ball in.
Sousa’s frustration at being unable to get on the second set scoreboard was evident when at 3-0 down he smacked a ball that went sailing out of Ken Rosewall Arena. That didn’t stop Bopanna and Qureshi continuing to press their opponents, dictating play at the net with short sharp volleys. The match was over in 44 minutes with the number three seeds booking their place in the final, where their opponents will be Nestor and Zimonjic. The Canadian-Serbian pairing defeated the French pairing of Julien Benneateau and Edouard Roger-Vasselin 4-6 7-6(5) 10-5.
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The veterans lost the first set after Benneateau and Roger-Vasselin demonstrated their French flair, hitting crisp volleys and returning well, and the second set was another tight affair with the teams swapping breaks early before heading into a tie-break. Despite the French pair grabbing the early lead, when Zimonjic hit a forehand volley into the open court, the veterans were able to force the match into a third set match tiebreak.
In a closely fought affair, Nestor and Zimonjic demonstrated their class and experience coming out on top in the tiebreaker 10 points to five.
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