Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi and Rohan Bopanna pulled off yet another stunning comeback on Thursday, to enter the quarterfinals of the ATP World Tour Championship in Valencia.
The IndoPak Express came back from six match points down to beat the big serve-returning pair of Juan Monaco of Argentina and Pablo Cuevas of Uruguay.
An aggressive start to the first set gave Qureshi and Bopanna a break of serve, which resulted in a 3-1 lead. The pair were soon serving for the set at 5-3 but hit roadblocks following two double faults and got broken. The resulting games saw the two teams level at 6-6. The IndoPak Express prevailed in the tie-break to win the set 7-6 (8/6).
Qureshi and Bopanna started the second set strongly, as they engineered five break points but their opponents managed to salvage their position and won the second set 6-4.
In the super tie-break, Monaco and Cuevas came up with magical serve returns and were soon cruising at 9-4, with five match-points in hand until Bopanna hit two big serves to make it 6-9. The next two points were well-returned by the IndoPak Express, who managed to bring the score back to 8-9. Qureshi then served big in the next two points to make it 10-9.
The South Americans then took the next two points to make it 11-10 but Bopanna took the next two points on his serve to make it 12-11 and at 12-12 Qureshi came up with a great return winner to set up his team's first match point on their serve at 13-12. The top Pakistani player missed his first serve but managed to hit an ace for the second serve, giving his team the win with a score of 7-6(8), 4-6, 14-12 in one hour and 35 minutes.
IndoPak Express hit nine aces and two double faults while the South Americans hit one ace and one double fault. The winners took a total of 82 points while their opponents took 80 of total 162 points played.
Qureshi and Bopanna will face the all-Spanish pair of Marc Lopez and Davis Marrero in the quarterfinals.
