Press Trust of India
New Delhi, Feb 18: Mahesh Bhupathi showed that he has lost none of his doubles form when he and Yuki Bhambri, playing for the first time together as a team, saw off initial resistance from Yannick Mertens and Stephane Robert to reach the men’s doubles semifinals of the Delhi Open, here Thursday. The Indians beat the Belgian-French combination 7-5, 6-1 at the DLTA complex.
In singles, Prajnesh Gunenswaran entered the quarterfinals after getting a walkover from Chinese seventh seed Yan Bai, who pulled out due to an upset stomach. He will next face second seed Kimmer Coppejans, who won his second round against Maxime Janvier 6-2, 6-4.
Yuki, who is trying to get match sharpness after recovering from an elbow injury, played well from the baseline, served better and struck the ball hard and clean.
Bhupathi, who is also making a comeback from a knee injury, served well and showed glimpses of his glorious past with some of his volleys at the nets.
Bhupathi was broken in the third game when he double-faulted on the deciding deuce point but the Indians broke back immediately when Robert came out to serve in the next game.
They again broke the Frenchman when Yuki smashed a forehand winner to earn a breakpoint and that was converted with another forehand error from Robert.
Serving for the set, Yuki was broken. The Indians though broke Robert for the third time in the set to seal it in the 12th game.
There was hardly any fight in the second set with the Indians racing to a 3-0 lead after breaking Mertens in the second game. Bhupathi fired an ace on the first match point to close out the tie.
“It’s surprising to see that Mahesh is still so sharp. He was picking up volleys with ease and was serving well. I was nervous and did not want to disappoint him,” Yuki said after the match.
Yuki and Bhupathi are now up against Jimmy Wang and Ze Zhang, who ousted Indian wild card team of Mohit Mayur Prakash and Vinayak Sharma Kaza 6-1, 6-4.
