Tashkent Challenger: Leander Paes-Andre Begemann storm into men's doubles final

Tashkent: Leander Paes earned himself a shot at his third ATP Challenger level title of the season by reaching the final of the $125000 Tashkent event with partner Andre Begemann on Thursday. The third seeded Indo-German duo annihilated local pair and giant-killers Sanjar Fayziev and Jurabeck Karmov 6-2, 6-0 in the semi-finals of the hard court event. [caption id=“attachment_3050348” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File photo of Leander Paes of India and his doubles partner Andre Begemann of Germany. Getty[/caption] Paes and Begemann needed only 42 minutes to win the match, in which they broke their rivals five times. The third seeds didn’t face a single break point on their own serve. Their dominating performance was highlighted by the fact that they overall won double the number of points as their opponents in the match (50 to 25). The pair now face Mikhail Elgin of Russia and Uzbekistan’s Denis Istomin in the final. Elgin and Istomin defeated the Belarusian-Swedish team of Aliaksandr Bury and Andreas Siljestrom 3-6, 6-4, 10-8 in their semi-final clash. Bury and Siljestrom were seeded fourth in this tournament. Paes had won Biella event with Begemann and the Busan tournament with Sam Groth early in the season. The veteran Indian is yet to win a title on the ATP World Tour this season, but he has two runners-up finishes – Winston-Salem and St Petersburg. (With inputs from PTI)