Reportedly, veteran Indian tennis star Leander Paes and his Czech partner Radek Stepanek crashed into the US Open men's doubles' semifinals following a tough-fought victory in the last-eight stage in New York.
Remarkably, the fourth-seeded Indo-Czech combo hammered the fifth seeded pair of Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi of Pakistan and Dutchman Jean-Julien Rojer by 6-1 6-7 (3) 6-4 in a match that continued for more than two and a half hours.
The duo will now clash with top-seeded American brothers Mike and Bob Bryan, who banged the 12th-seeded British combination of Colin Fleming and Jonathan Marray by 7-6 (7), 6-4 in their quarterfinal match.
Notably, Paes and Stepanek started off excellently and broke their opponents twice. In fact, they held their own serve to clinch the opening set within just 33 minutes. However, they were stretched quite a lot in the remaining two sets which took approximately an hour each to end.
It was observed that neither of the two teams conceded a single break point in the 2nd set. Although Qureshi and Rojer committed three double faults but fought bravely to equalize and maintain themselves in the match.
In addition, the third set was closely-contested but Paes-Stepanek converted an all-important break point while Qureshi and Rojer squandered away the only one which they got as the Indo-Czech pair sealed the concern.
