KARACHI: Pakistan tennis star Aisamul Haq Qureshi and his Italian partner Daniele Bracciali defeated Argentine Diego Alvarez and Alessop Di Mauro of Italy to enter the men’s doubles semi-finals of the Rai Open Championship underway in Rome, Italy.
After winning the first set 6-4, Aisam and Bracciali went down in the second by the same margin. With the score level, the match went to a super tiebreak in the third set that the Pakistan-Italian pair won 10-6.
This is Aisam’s third claycourt tournament in the season after he lost in the doubles finals of the Napoli ATP Challenger Championship and the Grand Prix King Hassan-II Championship, both with Rohan Bopanna of India.
Aisam and Bracciali will face Poland’s Tomasz Bednarek and Mateusz Kowalczyk in the semifinal of the ATP Challenger tournament. Aisam and his tennis partner had previously defeated the Columbian pair of Cristian Rodriguez and Oscar Rodriguez 6-3, 6-4, to reach the quarter-finals of the event that carries a total prize-money of €30,000.
The all Columbian team started the match in a much fancy way when they broke Bracciali’s serve in the third game to take a 2-1 lead but their lead was soon neutralized by the Pak-Italy pair in the sixth game and score levelled to 3-3.
They broke their opponents again in the eighth game and took a 5-3 lead. In the second set Aisam and Daniele struck effectively and broke their opponents serve to take a 3-2 lead on the only break point they got in the second set. They were down a break point twice but bailed themselves out effectively and went on to win the second set as well as the match.
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