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NEW YORK: Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi and his Indian doubles partner, Rohan Bopanna, crashed out of the US Open in the semi-finals stage, losing 6-2, 7-6(4) to Poland’s Mariusz Fyrstenberg and Marcin Matkowski.
The No. 5 seeds, Qureshi and Bopanna, could not manage even one break point on the sixth seeded Fyrstenberg and Matkowski’s serve. The Poles broke Bopanna in the first game of the match and got to 4-0 before the Pakistani- Indian pair could manage to get a game on the board themselves.
The ‘Indo-Pak Express’ was given no chance to get back into the set by the sixth seeds after that, who hit 10 winners and only 3 unforced errors in the first set, winning it 6-2 in 26 minutes.
The second set was much closer, although Qureshi and Bopanna did face 5 break points on their serve. However, they managed to save all of them and took the set to a tie-break. Fyrstenberg and Matkowski again put pressure on them from the start of the tie-break and took a 3-0 lead. Although the fifth seeds managed to win the remaining points on serve, they couldn’t make an impression on their opponents’ serve and the Poles closed out the set 7-6(4). The Poles hit 34 winners and made just 10 unforced errors during the match.
This will be the first grand slam final for Fyrstenberg and Matkowski, who had managed to get to just one semifinal in their 28 grand slam appearances before this. The Indian and Pakistani pair had been hoping to make their second consecutive appearance in the US Open final after they lost to the Bryan brothers last year.
Fyrstenberg and Matkowski will meet the No. 9 seeds Jurgen Melzer and Philipp Petzschner in Saturday’s championship.
