Paes enters US Open doubles final

New York, Sep 9 (UNI) Leander Paes will aim for his maiden US Open doubles title as the Indian and his Czech partner Martin Damm entered the final after staging a brilliant comeback from a set down to beat Paul Hanley of Australia and Kevin Ullyett of Zimbabwe 6-7 (7-1), 7-6 (9-7), 7-5 in a thrilling semi-final match here.

The sixth seeded Indo-Czech duo will now face in the summit clash the second seeded pair of Jonas Bjorkman of Sweden and Max Mirnyi of Belarus who beat Ashley Fisher of Australia and Tripp Phillips of Unites States of America 6-1, 6-4 in another semi-final.

Paes and Damm started off rustily and made as many atles seven unforced errors to opponents' three in the first set that took the toll on them. They could just hold on one serve in the tie-break and lost the set in 50 minutes.

The second set, however, saw the Indo-Czech pair putting their act together which pressurised their opponents to commit more unforced errors and double faults. But, the higher ranked American-Belarus pair refused to yield and the set was stretched to the tie-break again which Paes-Damm won after a long duel to level the match.

Paes and Damm then pressed on the advantage and stemmed any prospect of turnaround by their opponents in the decider and wrapped up the match in two hours and 40 minutes.

The Indian tennis ace, who is making his sixth Grand Slam final appearance in doubles and ninth overall -- counting the three in mixed doubles -- will be playing for his fourth Grand slam doubles title and seventh overall. He lost the doubles final here in 1999 pairing with Mahesh Bhupathi.

Paes already have three Grand Slam titles in doubles, two French Open (1999 and 2001) and one Wimbledon (1999) -- all pairing with Bhupathi. He lost two Australian Open finals pairing with Bhupathi (1999) and Martin Damm (2006).

He has so far won three Mixed Doubles titles -- two Wimbledon pairing with Martina Navaratilova (2003) and Lisa Raymond of United States (1999), one Australian Open pairing with Martina Navaratilova (2003).

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