Chennai: Top seeds Leander Paes and Raven Klaasen of South Africa lived up to their billing and entered the semifinals of the men’s doubles event at the ATP Chennai Open with a hard-fought win over Indian pair of Mahesh Bhupathi and Saketh Myneni, in Chennai on Thursday. The Paes-Klaasen combination came from a set down to beat Bhupathi and Myneni 1-6 6-1 10-7 in the keenly-contested quarterfinal duel.
The Indo-South African pair will next face unseeded Spanish duo of Pablo Carreno Busta and Guillermo Garcia-Lopez in the semifinals. Busta and Garcia-Lopez had defeated Ricardas Berankis of Lithuania and Mate Pavic of Croatia 6-4 0-6 10-4 in another quarterfinal match.
Paes and Klaasen were slow to get off the blocks as Bhupathi and Myneni broke their rivals twice out of four opportunities to pocket the first set 6-1. But Paes used all his experience and combined well with Klaasen to forge a comeback in the match.
Paes-Klaasen broke Bhupathi and Myneni twice to pocket the second set and take the match into super tie-breaker. In the super tie-breaker, Paes and Klaasen kept their composure to seal the tie in their favour.
Meanwhile in another doubles quarterfinal match earlier in the day, Indo-Canadian pair of Purav Raja and Adil Shamasdin defeated Spaniard Roberto Bautista Agut and Stanislaus Wawrinka of Switzerland 7-6 4-6 10-4 to book a place in the last four round.
