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Indian tennis ace Rohan Bopanna and Pablo Cuevas of Uruguay capped their stunning week in Vienna by winning the Erste Bank Open on Sunday. The two saved a couple of match points to grind out a 7-6(7), 6-7(4), 11-9 win over the unseeded combine of Marcelo Demoliner and Sam Querrey in the final that lasted 1 hour 45 minutes.
This is the second title of the year for the team, who earlier reigned supreme at the Monte Carlo Masters on clay in April. As for Bopanna, this is his third title of 2017, having opened the season with the title at the Chennai Open, which he won alongside Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan.
Bopanna and Cuevas did not have it easy in the final of this ATP 500 indoor event at the Austrian capital. The two pairs did not face any break point in a hard-fought first set which the Indo-Uruguayan combine bagged in a tie-break.
In the second set, Bopanna and Cuevas were presented with three break point opportunities, none of which they could convert. The Brazilian-American pair carried that momentum into the match tie-break and built a 5-3 lead as the Monte Carlo Masters champions peppered the court with a few errors.
The latter managed to put the tie-break back on level terms at 5-5 only to see their opponents cruising to a 9-7 lead with two match points in hand. A resilient display from the Indo-Uruguayan pair helped them save both and win the next two points as well on their way to the title.
The champions finished with a total of 39 points compared to which, Querrey and Demoliner could bag only 34.
Both the pairs have been giant-killers throughout the week. While Bopanna and Cuevas accounted for the top seeds and reigning Wimbledon champions Lukasz Kubot and Marcelo Melo in the quarter-finals, Querrey and Demoliner upset the third seeds Bruno Soares and Jamie Murray in the same round.
Also read: Erste Bank Open: Rohan Bopanna and Pablo Cuevas upset Wimbledon champions in quarter-finals
Myneni and Prashanth win in Ho Chi Minh City
Bopanna was not the only Indian winning on Sunday. Saketh Myneni and N Vijay Sundar Prashanth edged the Japanese team of Ben Mclaclan and Go Soeda, 7-6(3), 7-6(5) to win the title at the Ho Chi Minh City Challenger in Vietnam.
The Indian pair could find success just once out of six break point chances and saved seven out of the eight break points that they themselves faced.
Sharan goes down in Brest
Divij Sharan’s winning streak finally came to an end as he and Scott Clayton went down 4-6, 5-7 to the unheralded team of Sander Arends and Antonio Sancic in the final of the Brest Challenger in France on Sunday.
Sharan won the European Open in Antwerp last week which was his third career ATP title.
