London: Fifth seeds Mahesh Bhupathi and Rohan Bopanna saved one match point to advance to Monday’s title match at the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals. The all-Indian team advanced to the final with a 4-6, 6-1, 12-10 victory over the third seeds Leander Paes and Radek Stepanek, who were undefeated in the group stage, on Sunday at The O2 in London. It avenged Paes and Stepanek’s win in last month’s Shanghai Rolex Masters final.
Bhupathi and Bopanna came into the London tournament on the back of lifting their first ATP World Tour Masters 1000 trophy at the BNP Paribas Masters. Bhupathi is making his 12th appearance at the season-ending event. He is a four-time runner-up. Three of his runner-up finishes came with Paes in 1997, 1999 and 2000. He also finished runner-up with Max Mirnyi in 2010. As a team, Bhupathi and Bopanna improve to a 34-21 season mark.
“We wouldn’t mind a few more weeks on tour,” said Bhupathi, on their strong finish to the 2012 season. “We have got one match to go and get back into focus, after celebrating for the next two hours. We’d like to finish with the title here.”
Bhupathi and Bopanna will next play sixth seeds Marcel Granollers and Marc Lopez, who defeated eighth seeds Jonathan Marray and Frederik Nielsen 6-4, 6-3 later in on Sunday.
“We just wanted to make sure that we kept aggressive on the court,” said Bopanna. “They came up with a couple of good volleys to be ahead in the tie-break. We didn’t play any bad points as such. We just kept the same strategy and it paid off.”
When asked about the tense end to the Match tie-break, Bhupathi, smiling, said, “It was enjoyable at the end. In this format, things change very quickly. We just had to keep our heads down and fight, because things can change at any second. We were 3-7 and 5-8 down in the tie-break, made a few shots [and] the next thing you know we’re up match point.”
Bopanna said, “After winning Paris, we took that momentum here. After that first match loss here against Marray and Nielsen, which we lost in the Match tie-break, I think it helped us to realise that it isn’t over until the last point. I think that got us through today.”
Courtesy: www.atpworldtour.com