Dubai: The "Indian Express" of Mahesh Bhupathi and Leander Paes rolled past the Djokovic brothers 6-4, 6-1 to set a quarter-final meeting against the pairing of Marcel Granollers and Dick Norman in the doubles of the Dubai Duty Free Men's Open before a near-capacity crowd at the Dubai Tennis Stadium here on Tuesday.
Seeded No 1, the Indians were always the favourites to advance to the last eight stage of the doubles competition since making a comeback as a pair since the start of this season at the Chennai Open at the beginning of this year.
But the first set turned out to be tighter than expected, with the Indians registering a break on the younger Marko's serve for a 2-1 lead. But the brothers broke right back on Bhupathi's serve to draw level 3-3.
From then on, Bhupathi — watched by his wife Lara Dutta from the VIP stands — and Paes started attacking the inexperienced Marko. And this ploy yielded due results with the Indian pair going clear 4-3 and then holding to make it 5-3 to eventually have Bhupathi serve out for the set 6-4 in 32 minutes.
"Obviously this was a tricky match for us playing Novak and his brother. But we just tried to focus on our game, and try and block the rest out of it. And we came out on top," Bhupathi said.
"This was our first match after a few weeks, and so we are happy to start the campaign off here with a win," he added.
The second set was a bit different with the Indians registering an early break. By the fifth game they were cruising along 4-1 till Paes held for 5-1 and then came up with one final break, this time on Novak's serve, to take set and match in under one hour.
In 1999, Bhupathi won three doubles titles with Paes, including the French Open and Wimbledon. The pair in fact became the first doubles team to reach finals of all four Grand Slams — the first time such a feat has been achieved in the Open era and the first time since 1952. By the middle of the same year, they became the World No 1 doubles team.
Back as a pair after a long gap of nine years, Paes insisted that the results are an indication of their success as a combination on tour. They reached the final of the Australian Open where they lost in straight sets 3-6, 4-6 to Bob and Mike Bryan while also capturing the title in Chennai.
