Rohan Bopanna wins Abu Dhabi
Futures doubles

India's Rohan Bopanna, partnering Yen-Hsun Lu of Taipei, won the doubles title at the Abu Dhabi Futures Tennis tournament on Friday.

The duo, who teamed up for the first time, defeated the Slovakian pair of Tomas Janci and Roman Kukal 7-5, 7-5 in the final.

The Slovaks had won last week's Futures event in Abu Dhabi.

In the final, Bopanna played the dominant role and never allowed the Slovaks to establish control. The Indian came up with effective serve and volley tennis and forced the Slovaks to commit a lot of mistakes. With Lu also serving well, the combination took advantage of their rivals, who were playing their 11th doubles match in two weeks.

Earlier, Bopanna and Lu defeated Denis Gremelmayr of Germany and Herberg Wiltschnig of Austria 6-0, 6-1 in the semi-finals.

In the first round, they upset third seeds Leonardo Azzaro of Italy/Marco Chiudinelli of the Switzerland 6-3, 6-2 and then went on to defeat qualifiers Mads Gottlieb of Denmark/Josef Nesticky of the Czech Republic 6-3, 2-0 (ret.) in the quarter-finals.

Bopanna will now proceed to Beirut for the Davis Cup tie against Lebanon. The title was first-ever Futures win for the 21-year-old Bangalore lad. It gave him 18 ATP points.