Indian tennis star Leander Paes and his Czech partner Radek Stepanek advanced to the US Open men’s doubles semifinals after a hard-fought win on Tuesday.
The fourth-seeded Indo-Czech pair defeated the fifth-seeded combination of Pakistan’s Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi and Dutchman Jean-Julien Rojer 6-1, 6-7(3), 6-4 in a quarterfinal match.
They will now be up against top-seeded American brothers Mike and Bob Bryan, who got the better of the 12th-seeded British pair of Colin Fleming and Jonathan Marray 7-6(7), 6-4 in their quarterfinal match.
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Paes and Stepanek started off well and broke their rivals twice, while holding their own serve, to clinch the opening set in just 33 minutes.
But they were stretched quite a bit in the remaining two sets.
In the second set, neither of the two teams conceded a single break point. Qureshi and Rojer had three double faults but fought hard enough to equalise and keep themselves in the match.
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The third set was also closely-contested but Paes-Stepanek converted an all-important breakpoint while Qureshi and Rojer frittered away the only one they got as the Indo-Czech pair sealed the issue. — PTI