Bhupathi and Knowles raring to go at Barclays ATP World Tour Finals
The Indo-Bahamian pairing had opened their campaign at this season-ending finale with a 6-3, 6-3 win
London: The third-seeded pairing of Mahesh Bhupathi and Mark Knowles lived up to their threat of being among the best at the season-ending Barclays ATP World Tour Finals here with a fighting 3-6, 6-3, 10-7 win against eighth seeded Mariusz Fyrstenberg and Marcin Matkowski on Tuesday.
"It was just a question of believing. We know are good enough to play anyone, and like I said the other day, someone will have to really blow us out off the court if they want to beat us," Bhupathi told Gulf News.
The Indo-Bahamian pairing had opened their campaign at this season-ending finale with a 6-3, 6-3 win against Frantisek Cermak and Michal Mertinak on Sunday.
Their second win puts them in pole position for a semifinal spot on Saturday, but they are still keeping their goal set at taking it one at a time. "Two wins out of two is the positive. The pressure is now on the other teams," Bhupathi said.
But yesterday, Fyrstenberg and Matkowski came out flying and got their first break on Bhupathi's serve to take a 4-2 lead. Matkowski then served off to take the first set 6-3.
However things turned around in the second as the Indo-Bahamian pair took their chances to draw level after taking the set 6-3. In the super tie-breaker, they were 5-0 up till Fyrstenberg and Matkowski drew close at 6-8. That was all they could manage as Bhupathi and Knowles played some solid tennis to win 10-7.
"We may still end up with three teams having two wins each and then the group will be wide open," Bhupathi said.
"The idea is to win all three matches in the round robin stages. At the moment we don't want to think beyond this, we still want to go out there and win the third one (against top seeds Nenad Zimonjic and Daniel Nestor)," Knowles added.
Result: Mahesh Bhupathi/Mark Knowles bt Mariusz Fyrstenberg/Marcin Matkowski 3-6, 6-3, 10-7.
