Dubai Open: Leander Paes and Jamie Cerretani upset fourth seeds to enter semi-finals

The wildcard doubles pair of Leander Paes and Jamie Cerretani caused a huge upset when they sent the fourth seeds Raven Klaasen and Michael Venus packing from the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships on Thursday. The Indo-American combine came back from a set down to edge their seeded opponents 2-6, 6-4, 10-7 in 1 hour 20 minutes at this ATP 500 tournament.

The victors had 79% of their first serves in and converted the only break point that came their way in the second set. Klaasen and Venus, in contrast, squandered three break point opportunities in that set.

Paes and Cerretani finished with a total of 29 points while Klaasen and Venus could only bag 25 points. They next take on giant-killers Damir Dzumhur and Filip Krajinovic, who stunned the top seeds John Peers and Henri Kontinen in the first round.

This is the first semi-final this year for the evergreen Indian ace at an event on the ATP World Tour. The former World No. 1 has won only one title this year -- the Newport Beach Challenger title. Incidentally, it came in partnership with Cerretani.

While Paes has been doing well at this Middle Eastern tournament, both Rohan Bopanna and Divij Sharan crashed out in the first round on Wednesday.

Pouille survives

In singles, second seed Lucas Pouille survived a tight quarter-final clash with the eighth seeded Yuichi Sugita. Pouille stormed from a deficit to carve out a 3-6, 6-3, 6-2 win over the Japanese.

He faces the winner of the match between the seventh seeded Filip Krajinovic and Evgeny Donskoy.

The Frenchman has been in great form of late and reached the final in two of his last three tournaments, winning at Montpellier.

In the other quarter-finals, Malek Jaziri outlasted Stefanos Tsitsipas 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 in a battle of wildcard entrants. He next meets the third seed Roberto Bautista Agut, who beat Borna Coric 7-6(4), 6-4.