It was a day of mixed results for the Indian doubles contingent at the Tennis Hall of Fame Open in Newport on Thursday. Leander Paes and his partner Sam Groth clinched a place in the semi-final, while the all-Indian duo of Divij Sharan and Purav Raja stumbled in their quarter-final.
The third seeded Indo-Australian team dropped just five games en route to beating the unseeded Dutch-Kiwi pairing of Wesley Koolhof and Artem Sitak, 6-4, 6-1. Paes and Groth saved all four break points they faced on their serve and converted three of the five break points they had on their opponents’ serve.
Paes and Groth will face the top-seeds Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi and Rajeev Ram for a place in the final on Friday.
In the other quarter-final, the fourth seeded Indian team of Sharan and Raja were upset by the Australian team of Matt Reid and John-Patrick Smith in a tight straight setter, 7-6(5), 7-6(4). Both teams were evenly matched, but the unseeded team clinched decisive points in the tie-breaks across the two sets, to pull through into the penultimate round.
Reid and Smith will face fellow Australian, and unseeded, team of Alex Bolt and Andrew Whittington in the semi-final on Friday. as well.