It was a mixed day for Indian doubles at the Tata Open Maharashtra as Yuki Bhambri and Divij Sharan stunned the top seeds to reach the semi-finals while defending champions Rohan Bopanna and Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan lost their quarter-final match on Thursday.
Bhambri and Sharan had a brief hiccup in the second set but held their nerves to beat the top seeded pair of Robert Lindstedt and Franko Skugor 7-5, 2-6, 10-6. They are the last Indians left in the draw after Bopanna and Jeevan went down 3-6, 5-7 to the much stronger French duo of Pierre-Hugues Herbert and Gilles Simon.
Playing on Court 1, the last-minute pairing of Bhambri and Sharan put on a tough fight against the higher-ranked pair. They saved eight breakpoints throughout the match, and converted three out of four break chances they had.
Sharan was initially to pair with Scott Lipsky, but the American pulled out and he asked Bhambri to partner him on the deadline day in Pune itself. But the limited practice was enough as they clicked together. In Sharan’s words, it’s because each brings a different aspect to the pairing. “Yuki brought his singles game and I played to my strength, which worked,” he said after the match.
Bhambri, on his part, gave credit to Sharan’s gameplan and hoped the win would help the doubles specialist. “Divij has all the insights on the strengths and weaknesses of the opponents, so he has been guiding me. We stick to the plan and it was a good win, especially for Divij,” he said.
The Indian duo, who had finished runners-up at the Tashkent Challenger last year, will play Herbert and Simon in the semifinals and an upbeat Sharan said he was looking forward to the challenge. “I am confident now that I can win against any player,” the 31-year-old said.
French duo too strong
On the centre court, last year’s Chennai Open champions just couldn’t handle the combined firepower of the two-time Grand Slam champion Herbert and Simon. A big-server, Herbert put the Indians under early pressure and Simon, who had knocked out defending champion Roberto Bautista Agut in the singles, was especially stronger in his returns.
Both Bopanna and Jeevan said they fought as well as they could but the French pair was playing on a different level on the day.
“Herbert is a Grand Slam champion, he is No 1 in the world. He was serving extremely well and they both returned that well. When someone is serving that well, the obvious thing is to to try and break Simon. That’s added pressure right there,” Bopanna said after the match.
“Herbert had couple of deuce points, he served huge. He served two double faults to Jeevan and on the deuce point he served a big second serve,” he elaborated.
Jeevan, who lost his serve twice, said they tried different things like I formation, moving right-left and then getting back to regular things but nothing worked.
They had a much stronger showing in the second set, but couldn’t get across the line to force a tiebreaker. Both the French players had their singles matches earlier in the day, with Herbert losing to Marin Cilic while Simon progressed to the semi-finals.
Singles results
Earlier, pre-tournament favourites Cilic and Kevin Anderson set up prospects of a final showdown by reaching the semifinals with contrasting wins.
The top seed outplayed eighth seed Pierre-Hugues Herbert 6-3, 6-2 in 64 minutes while Anderson survived a mighty scare from a dogged Mikhail Kukushkin before edging him 6-7(3), 6-4, 6-2.
Cilic will now take on Simon, who ended the run of Spanish qualifier Ricardo Ojeda Lara with a 6-2, 6-3 win. Anderson will play fourth seeded wildcard Benoit Paire who beat fifth seed Robin Haase 7-5, 2-6, 6-3.