Bopanna-Qureshi pair crashes out of Malaysian Open

Kuala Lumpur:

Rohan Bopanna and his Pakistani partner Aisam-ul Haq Qureshi squandered a one-set advantage to go down to the Russian-Czech pair of Igor Kunitsyn and Jaroslav Levinsky in the men's doubles quarterfinals of Malaysian Open tennis tournament here on Wednesday.

The wildcard Indo-Pakistani pair went down 6-2, 6-7 (4), 11-13 in a contest lasting more than one and half hour.

Bopanna and Qureshi got off to a fabulous start, breaking their rivals twice to take the opening set in no time but things went haywire from there on and Kunitsyn and Levinsky bounced back.

Both the teams held serve and did not concede a single break point in the second set. But Kunitsyn and Levinsky raised their game in the tie-breaker to draw level.

The super tie-breaker was also an evenly-matched fight and the two teams were locked 11-11 before Kunitsyn and Levinsky edged past the Indo-Pakistani pair.