Indo-Pak Express derails in Valencia

Aisamul Haq Qureshi and Rohan Bopanna crashed out of the Valencia Open through a straight-sets defeat.

Pakistan’s Aisamul Haq Qureshi and his Indian partner Rohan Bopanna crashed out of the Valencia Open through a straight-sets defeat at the hands of Marc Lopez and David Marrero.

The Indo-Pak Express, seeded fourth in the tournament, lost their quarter-final 2-6, 4-6 in under an hour to their unseeded Spanish rivals. The duo, ranked sixth in the world, needs to maintain its ranking in order to qualify for the year-end World Tour Finals in London where the world’s top eight take part.

Third-seeds Mahesh Bhupathi and Max Mirnyi, though, advanced to the semi-finals with a 6-3, 6-7 (8-6), 10-6 win over Czech Frantisek Cermak and Slovakia’s Michal Mertinak. Bhupathi and Mirnyi will face top-seeds Lukasz Kubot and Oliver Marach in the last-four.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 7^th, 2010.