Paes, Bhupathi in second round
of Monte Carlo Masters
The Indian pair of Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi on Monday cruised into the second round of the Monte Carlo Masters Series, defeating J Landsberg and T VanHoudt 7-5, 6-0.
The Indians had one of their best matches in recent times coming back from triple set points at 4-5 in the first set and then not dropping a single game after that to take the match. The win gave the Indians a good start for the clay season.
The match started ominously with the Indians dropping serve in the first game itself. But they broke back immediately to get it back on serve in the second game.
It went with serve till the 7th game when the Indians dropped serve again. At this point, the duo appeared to be facing the typical problems associated with not having played on clay for a very long time.
They had a couple of opportunities in the 8th game to break back, but Landsberg/VanHoudt held serve to go up 5-3.
In the 10th game, Landsberg/VanHoudt were serving at triple set points at 5-4, 40-0 when something clicked for the Indians.
They fought off three set points and then converted their second break chance to tie up at 5-5.
Suddenly, the Indians seemed to be on a roll, not dropping a game and going on to win the final 9 games in a row.
For the match, Paes/Bhupathi had 66% of their first serves in, winning 72% of the points after a good first serve. They only had one double fault in the match.
The second round opponents for the Indians will be decided on Tuesday.
The win gives 75 entry points to the Indians. It would be good for them to pick up some good points, with Paes having 255 points falling off after this week. If his ranking falls below the current 84, it would start causing problems for the Indians to get direct entries to the masters events.
