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Indian ace Rohan Bopanna and his Croatian partner Ivan Dodig put up a brilliant show of resilience to save a couple of match points and reach the final of the 2017 Coupe Rogers in Montreal on Saturday. The seventh seeds edged past the sixth seeds Raven Klaasen and Rajeev Ram 4-6, 7-6(8), 11-9 in the 1 hour 42-minute contest.
This is the first ATP Masters 1000 final for the Bopanna-Dodig pair. They will meet the fifth seeds Nicolas Mahut and Pierre-Hugues Herbert in the title showdown on Sunday.
The Frenchmen, who have won two Grand Slam titles, got the better of the 2017 Wimbledon runners-up Oliver Marach and Mate Pavic, 7-5, 6-3.
Bopanna and Dodig thundered 10 aces past their higher seeded opponents. Interestingly, they never managed to make any in-roads into the serves of Klaasen and Ram, who saved all three of the break points they faced.
It was the Bopanna-Dodig duo, who conceded a vital break of serve to lose the opening set, 4-6.
They made amends for it in the second set in a stunning fashion when they saved a match point at 6-7 and then again one more at 7-8 in the ensuing tie-break.
They then held their nerves to narrowly eke out the match tie-break.
This is only the second tournament for the Bopanna-Dodig duo, who made it to the semi-finals of the Aegon Championships at Queen’s Club on grass in June. Dodig is looking to defend the Canadian Masters title that he won last year alongside Marcelo Melo.
Ramanathan upsets fourth seed in Cincinnati qualifying
Meanwhile, Ramkumar Ramanathan produced an impressive display to upset the fourth seed Dusan Lajovic in the first round of qualifying at the 2017 Western and Southern Open in Cincinnati, Ohio on Saturday. 111 ranking places separated Ramanathan and the World No. 68 Lajovic but the Indian made a mockery of the huge gulf as he beat the Serbian, 7-6(1), 6-4.
The 179th ranked Ramanathan will next meet the 14th seeded Maximilian Marterer of Germany.
It was, however, curtains for the other Indian in the fray. Prajnesh Gunneswaran went down 2-6, 6(2)-7 to Marterer.
