Third-seeded pair of Rohan Bopanna from India and Wesley Koolhof from the Netherlands beat Luke Bambridge from Great Britain and Santiago Gonzalez from Mexico in the doubles final of the Qatar ExxonMobil Open yesterday. The duo won an exciting match 3-6, 6-2, 10-6 in an hour and 12 minutes.
It was a day of double duty for both the finalists pairs as they also had to play their semi-final earlier in the day after Thursday’s matches were washed out.
Bopanna and Koolhof, who got together for the first time for the tournament, beat the second-seeded Henri Kontinen from Finland and Franko Skugor from Croatia 7-5, 6-2.
Bambridge and Santiago Gonzalez beat the Danish-German pair of Frederik Nielsen and Tim Puetz 2-6, 6-2, 10-4 in the semi-final earlier yesterday.
The final was an entertaining match, full of rallies that used the full arsenal of shots from all the players, including well-placed lobs and deft drop shots. Bambridge and Gonzalez broke once in the first set, courtesy of a backhand cross-court winner from Briton. This break would prove to be enough to wrap up the first set 6-3.
In the second set the Indian-Dutch duo fought back and broke the Gonzalez serve twice with some aggressive return winners, wrapping up the set 6-2 to set up an exciting match tie-break to determine the winners of the title.
Both pairs were aggressive in the tiebreak, but Bopanna and Koolhof took their chances on the big points and closed the match out to win their first title together.
When asked about the new successful partnership and whether it took any time to gel together, Bopanna responded, “It took us two days of good practice this week to gel together and feeding off of each other’s energy is what makes a good partnership.
“We have good communication on court and we are always positive, regardless of the scenario we are facing and this always helps when you play with a new partner.”
They were asked whether it was easier to play with a doubles specialist when forming a new partnership, as opposed to a singles player to which Koolhof responded, “We are both used to playing with singles guys, I played with Robin Haase and Rohan played with Denis Shapovalov in the latter half of last year but it helps to partner with a doubles specialist because you have more time to practice together rather than having to wait for singles matches to be completed and to assess if the singles player is fit enough to come and play doubles.”
Bopanna echoed the same sentiment stating, “An advantage of not playing with a singles player is that you can practice a lot more together rather than just warming up and playing the match.”
Qatar ExxonMobil Open doubles champions India’s Rohan Bopanna (fourth from right) and the Netherlands’ Wesley Koolhof (third from right) pose with their trophies, runner-up pair of Britain’s Luke Bambridge (fourth from left) and Mexico’s Santiago Gonzalez (third from left), and officials during the prize distribution ceremony yesterday. PICTURE: Jayan Orma
