Bhupathi-Ancic beat Paes-Qureshi; get walkover into finals

Mumbai, Sep 30 (UNI) The third seeded pair Mahesh Bhupathi and Mario Ancic of Croatia packed too many guns to overpower the Indo-Pak pair of Leander Paes and Aisam Qureshi winning in three sets to enter the semi-final of the US $ 3,80,000 Kingfisher Airlines Open Tennis tournament at the CCI hard courts here today.

The Bhupathi-Ancic pair won at 6-1, 5-7, 10-3 (super tie-breaker) in one hour and 34 minutes to enter the semifinals. However, the pair got a direct entry into the finals as their semi-final opponents -- the German pair of Simon Greul and Denis Gremelmayr, had pulled out due to a hip injury to the latter.

Bhupathi and Ancic started off in a whirlwind fashion and raced to a 3-0 lead before Paes-Qureshi got onto the scoreboard. The third seeds finished off the second set in just 34 minutes.

Paes and Qureshi, however, got their act together in the second set and after the two pairs had traded a couple of breaks each, Leander and Qureshi got the all important break in the 11 game breaking Bhupathi's serve. Paes then served out the set at 7-5 to force the third set to super tie-break.

In the super tie-break, it was Bhupathi and Ancic all the way as they raced to a 8-1 lead before closing the match at 10-2 to move directly into the finals having got a walkover in the semis.

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