Dubai: India’s Rohan Bopanna and his Polish partner Marcin Matkowski reached the men’s doubles finals of the Dubai Tennis Championships after beating Leander Paes and Guillermo Garcia-Lopez in three sets.
The unseeded Indo-Polish pair knocked out the Indo-Spanish combination 6-3 3-6 10-6 in the semi-finals of the $2,617,160 hard court tournament.
Both the pairs shared honours in the first two sets but Bopanna-Matkowski played with much more power and energy in the super tie-breaker to come out winners 10-6 and enter the final of the hard court tournament.
This is the second best performance of the season for Bopanna, who is playing with his fourth different partner of the season. He had won the season-opening Chennai Open with compatriot Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan.
In the final, Bopanna and Matkowski will clash with the winner of the second semi-final between top seeded duo of Henri Kontinen and John Peers, and fourth seeds Rojer Jean-Julien and Tecau Horia.
There is no Indian competing in the singles. Prajnesh Gunneswaran had lost in the first round of the qualifying event, suffering a 2-6 2-6 defeat against Romania’s 124th ranked Marius Copil.