Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi

Chennai, Jan 08: It was the kind of energetic day, which the Chennai Open was waiting for many days. After battling hard in the first round as they came back into the match from four points behind, Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi did not increase the heart beats of Indian fans on Friday as they easily went through the semi finals. As still they are yet to give their best tennis performance in the tournament, Paes-Bhupathi did enough work to knock out the Germany’s Phillip Marx and Great Britain’s Ken Skupski by 6-4, 7-6.

“We are getting stronger and better with every game now. I was little unwell from past couple of days due to weather but I’m extremely happy that it did not affect my performance on the court.” said Paes. In the singles category, top seed Tomas Berdych and former champion Xavier Maliesse were through the last four. After conquering over his last two opponents, Slovakia’s Blaz Kavcic was not hard enough to win against Berdych. The 23 year old has been playing some fearless tennis but Berdych on the other hand has been class apart in this tournament and won the match by 6-3, 6-3, which lasted for one hour and 24 minutes.

While Berdych has been fantastic in each of his game in the tournament, Malisse has booked himself as the challenger for the title win for Berdych. The Belgian player who holds the record of winning a double (singles and doubles title in the same year) in Chennai, swept Germany’s Bjorn by 6-0, 6-2. Paes-Bhupathi, who had their match on opening day, played their second round game after having three day break. But the duo Indians were smart enough to hit the centre mark very quickly. Paes-Bhupathi’s next match will be against Croatia’s Marin Cilic and Ivan Dodig to qualify for the finals.

Tags: Chennai Open, Chennai Open 2011, Indian Express, Indian Tennis, Leander Paes, Mahesh Bhupathi, SDAT Stadium, Tennis