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KARACHI Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi and Filip Polasek staged a dramatic comeback to enter the second round of Barcelona Open on Wednesday.
The Pakistani tennis star and his Slovakian partner beat local wild-card favourites Alberto Martin and Fernando Vicente 4-6, 6-2, 10-8 in the ATP championship.
The Spaniards broke Polasek's serve in the third game to gain initial advantage but were broken back in the next game. Polasek then missed two crucial volleys in the ninth game to give away another serve break to Martin and Vicente, who made no mistake in closing the set at 6-4.
With the first set in hand, the Spaniards started the second strongly to go 40-0 up in Polasek's first service game of the set. The Pak-Slovak duo fought back to take the next four and save their serve. Spurred by the home crowd, Martin and Vicente kept building pressure in the following games and managed to set-up break points in every game but were denied by the Pak-Slovak pair. Qureshi's serve-and-volley game helped him and Polasek gain break advantages, which they duly converted to bag the second set 6-2.
Having saved nine break points and claiming the second set, Qureshi and Polasek had the momentum in their favour in the final set. The third set saw the control of the match see-saw in a super tie-break, which Qureshi and Polasek eventually won 10-8.
Qureshi and Polasek will face tournament second seeds Bob and Mike Bryan (US) in the pre-quarter-final round.
