BOPANNA-DIVIJ WIN THRILLER, IN MAHARASHTRA OPEN SEMIS

PUNE:TOP seeds Rohan Bopanna and Divij Sharan saved six match points in an edge-of-the-seat thriller against Leander Paes and Miguel Angel Reyes-varela to move to the semi-finals of the Tata Open Maharashtra here on Thursday. After splitting the two sets, the Super Tie Breaker turned out to be a cliffhanger in which Paes and his Mexican partner had as many as six chances to close the match but the Asian Games gold medallists held their nerves to remain alive.

At 8-8, Paes appeared to have served a double fault but the chair umpire and the linesman did not call and a livid Bopanna began an argument with the match official but to no avail.

The top seeds eventually prevailed 6-7(4), 6-4, 17-15 after one hour and 45 minutes.

Immediately after saving their sixth match point to make it 15-15, Bopanna smashed a volley winner to earn their second match point and finished it with a lob, which landed near the baseline, sailing over their opponents. The shot ended the 24-minute super tie-breaker.

In singles action, top seed and world No 6 Kevin Anderson beat Jaume Munar 6-3, 6-3 to reach the semi-finals. On Wednesday, India’s Ramkumar Ramanathan was knocked out after losing 7-6(6), 6-7, 3-6 to world No 45 Malek Jaziri in the Round of 16.

ZEESHAN RETURNS

PUNE: Making a U-turn, the national tennis federation has brought back Davis Cup coach Zeeshan Ali in the senior selection committee after realising that none of the other members had a direct connect with the players on the Tour.

At its recent Executive Committee in Gurugram, the All India Tennis Association (AITA) had removed Zeeshan along with head of the panel SP Misra and replaced them with former player Vishal Uppal and Ankita Bhambri.

Rohit Rajpal was named as the new chief. “Zeeshan is someone who is always in touch with the players, so we thought we need to bring him back,” Rajpal said confirming the development.