Indo-Pak duo of Rohan Bopanna and Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi continue their exciting run at the US Open Men’s doubles event as they stormed into the finals on Thursday.
They defeated Argentines Eduardo Schwank and Horacio Zeballos 7-6 (5) 6-4 to set up a summit clash with top-seeded American brothers Bob and Mike Bryan in the finals.
He will be playing the first of those finals today (Thursday, September 9, 2010) – US Open Mixed Doubles – where Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi and his Czech partner Kveta Peschke will play Liezel Huber and Bob Bryan of USA.
This is by far the best performance by a Pakistani in a grand slam tournament, and to be playing in two different finals in one of the most important (possibly, second only to Wimbledon) tennis tournament in the world is a major achievement.
In any doubles game credit should go equally to both players in the team, Aisam-ul-Haq has blossomed into a doubles player of great skill and merit and has been steadily improving his world standings in doubles tennis (now ranked No. 34 in World Doubles rankings).
His rise in this year’s US Open Doubles tournaments has been particularly heartening, and all the more impressive since he is playing both categories side-by-side.
In both the finals, Aisam will be playing against American Bob Bryan. In the Mixed Doubles Final, Aisam and his Czech partner Kveta Peschke will play against Bob Bryan and his fellow-American Liezel Huber, while in the Men’s Doubles Final Aisam and his Indian partner Rohan Bopanna will be pitted against the American brothers Bob and Mike Bryan.
His stellar streak, coming at a time when just about everything in Pakistan- from floods to cricket – seems to be going terribly wrong gives some solace to Pakistani fans. The first of his Finals will be played later today (Thursday, September 9) and we wish Aisam and Kveta the very best of luck, as we do to Aisam and Rohan who will feature in the Men’s Final later this week.
Indian Tennis star Sania Mirza too congratulated Bopanna and Qureshi for their achievement over the popular Micro- Blogging site.