Indian-Polish pair of Rohan Bopanna and Marcin Matkowski beat Indian-Spanish team of G. Garcia-Lopez and Leander Paes 6-3, 3-6 and 10-6 to secure a berth in the final of the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championship. Bopanna-Matkowski won the first set 6-3 but lost the second 3-6 that got Paes and Lopez right back in the match. But in the super tie-break, the Indian-Polish team, who are unseeded in the tournament, held their nerves to win the match.
The match went on for 1 hour, 8 minutes and 26 seconds with Bopanna-Matkowski prevailing in the super tie-breaker to seal their place in the final.
Bopanna and Matkowski reached the last four in the men's doubles event following a straight-set win over Romania's Florin Mergea and Serbia's Viktor Troicki. The unseeded Indo-Polish pair won 6-3, 6-4 in the quarter-finals of the USD 2,617,160 hard court tournament. Matkowski is Bopanna's fourth different partner of the season. Bopanna and Matkowski had shocked second seeds Ivan Dodig and Marcel Granollers 5-7, 6-3, 11-9 in the opening round.
Bopanna, who had won the season-opening Chennai Open with compatriot Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan, produced his second-best performance of the season.
(With PTI Inputs)