London, Nov 21: Rohan Bopanna and his Romanian partner Florin Mergea today made it to the title round of the men’s doubles event at the ATP World Tour Finals after registering a straight-set victory here. The eighth seeded Indo-Romanian pair stunned third seeded combination of Croatian Ivan Dodig and Marcelo Melo of Brazil 6-4 6-2 in a semi-finals contest that lasted 59 minutes at The O2 Arena here.
Bopanna and Mergea, who had finished second in Ashe/Smith Group, dominated from the very beginning of their tie today, winning 93 per cent of their first serve points. They also converted on all four break point chances.They became the first eighth seeds to reach the final at the season finale since Mariusz Fyrstenberg and Marcin Matkowski in 2011.
In the opening set, the Indo-Romanian duo held their serve throughout, while broke their opponents once to wrap up it up comfortably.In the second set, Bopanna and Mergea upped the ante even more and managed to break their Croat-Brazilian opponents twice to wrap the set and the match without much hassle.With this victory, Bopanna and Mergea have now exacted revenge on the Croat-Brazilian combo following two defeats this year in the quarter-finals of Cincinnati and Paris.
Bopanna and Mergea will now take on the winner of the other semi-final match between Bob and Mike Bryan and Jean-Julien Rojer and Horia Tecau. The winners of the final will finish the year as Number 1 men’s doubles team. Bopanna will be appearing in his second title match at the ATP World Tour Finals, having reached the final alongside countrymate Mahesh Bhupathi in 2012.
Courtesy : PTI