Bopanna-Middelkoop enter maiden French Open men's doubles semifinals. (Photo | Twitter, @india_narrative)
PARIS: India's Rohan Bopanna and his Dutch partner Matwe Middelkoop advanced to their first Grand Slam semifinal in seven years after beating Lloyd Glasspool and Henri Heliovaara at the French Open here.
The Indo-Dutch pair, who has last reached the semifinals of a Grand Slam event in 2015 Wimbledon, eked out a 4-6, 6-4, 7-6 (3) win over the British-Finnish combination in a hard-fought men's doubles quarterfinal match on Tuesday.
Bopanna, 42, and Middelkoop, 38, will face 12th seeds Marcelo Arevalo and Jean-Julien Roger on Thursday in the last four. The Bopanna and Middelkoop squandered the opening set but dished out a superb fightback to win the next two as emerging victories.
In the decider, the Indo-Dutch pair showed tremendous mental fortitude to fight back from 3-5 down to take the match to a super tiebreak. They were again 0-3 behind but won 10 straight points to come up trumps.
Bopanna and Middelkoop had saved five match points to knock out Mate Pavic and Nikola Mektic, the reigning Wimbledon champions, from the Roland Garros, on Saturday.
