Chennai Open: Bopanna-Qureshi move up as Berdych has it easy

CHENNAI: Tomas Berdych continued his emphatic march with a 6-2, 6-4 victory over Croat Ivan Dodig while in doubles Rohan Bopanna and Aisam Qureshi started without any hiccups in the Chennai Open on Wednesday. The Indo-Pak Express overcame stiff resistance in the second set from the Brazil-Argentina duo of Marcos Daniel and Eduardo Schwank to register a 6-3, 7-6 (3) victory.
Bopanna and Qursehi pounced on Marcos Daniel’s serve in the fourth game to take a 3-1 lead and they didn’t let that advantage go.The pair, on a high after last season’s impressive show which included a run to the US Open final, always had the upper hand and though the Latin duo tried to match them in the second set Bopanna and Qureshi always had too much in reserve.
In the tiebreak, after enjoying a mini-break off Schwank for the very first point, the Indo-Pak pair raced to a 4-2 lead. Bopanna then fired an ace which clocked 209 km and Quersehi, at full stretch, made a lovely volley for the next point which gave them four match points. Though the Latinos saved one, Bopanna and Qureshi clinched it thereafter.
Ivan Dodig did a lot better than Frederico Gil. He served well after the opening jitters, approached the net, matched his opponent shot for shot and even took a game off his serve. But that Tomas Berdych, the No.1 seed, still clinched a 6-2, 6-4 victory to book his berth in quarterfinals suggests it will take a special effort to stop the Czech giant.
"No match is easy, the scores may look comfortable but it’s not as easy as the score suggests," said Berdych.
"I played my hundred per cent and took all my chances. It doesn’t matter how long you are on the court. All that matters is that you win it in the end," he said after the match which lasted for an hour and 27 minutes, some forty minutes more than what he spend for his opening-round victory.