Heartbreak for Paes as Rojer, Tecau defend doubles title
dubai — Despite playing some fantastic tennis in the tournament, Indian legend Leander Paes and his American partner Jamie Cerretani failed to clear the final hurdle in the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships.
In Saturday’s final, Paes and Cerretani, who entered the championships on a wildcard, had no answer to the brilliance of the second seeds Jean-Julien Rojer of the Netherlands and Horia Tecau of Romania as they lost 2-6 6-7.
Victory in the final would have made the 44-year-old Paes the jointsecond most successful doubles champion in Dubai with three titles.
But 20 years after winning his first title here with compatriot Mahesh Bhupathi, Paes failed in his attempt to join another compatriot, Rohan Bopanna, as the second most successful doubles player here.
On Friday night, Paes and Cerretani showed magical volleying skills during their straight sets (6-4 6-2) win over Damir Dzumhur of Bosnia and Filip Krajinovic of Serbia in the semifinal on centre court.
But Rojer and Tecau were too smart for the Indian-American pair in Saturday’s final. And they survived a spirited fightback from Paes and Cerretani in the second set to become the first team to defend the Dubai men’s doubles title.
“I actually thought that the boys started off on fire. They must have hit about five, six net cords which fell in their favour. They hit one miss-hit backhand return shot cross-court. That’s the margins you play with in professional tennis, in the scoring format. One or two shots went in their favour,” Paes said after the final on Saturday.
“In the second set, we turned it around. I felt that at 4-All or 5-All, we didn’t catch fire returning. Normally we do. At 4-All, 5-All I pride our team to actually catch fire, hit a couple good ones,” the eight-time doubles Grand Slam champion added.
“But today it didn’t quite happen. Sometimes you just got to tip your hat to your opponents and say, ‘too good, well done.’ It goes to show what a great team they are. They played really well today.”
Saturday’s win was also the 17th career title as a team for Rojer and Tecau. “It was a great week. We’re coming after a semifinal in Rotterdam. We had some expectations here. We won last year. We like the conditions here, a fast court, suits our game. We just tried to prepare really well going from indoors to outdoors, take one match at a time, focus on that,” Tecau said.
“The preparation went really well. We’re happy. With each match we got better. We had some tough quarterfinals and semifinals. Happy to get the win today because it was a tricky match.”
In the rain-hit first semifinal on Friday, Rojer and Tecau won in straight sets (7-5 6-3) against the third seeds Ivan Dodig of Croatia and Rajeev Ram of the US. Tecau, who has won two Grand Slam doubles titles with Rojer, said they were very proud to become the first team to defend the Dubai title. “It means a lot because this tournament always has a strong doubles field. Winning here two years in a row, it’s a great accomplishment for us.”
rituraj@khaleejtimes.com