Indian tennis ace Rohan Bopanna and his Uruguayan partner, Pablo Cuevas made a dream start to the European clay season by storming into the final of the 2017 Monte Carlo Masters at the Principality of Monaco on Saturday. The unseeded pair needed just an hour to subdue the challenge of the wildcard team of Romain Arneodo and Hugo Nys, 6-4, 6-3.
In the title showdown, the Indo-Uruguayan combine will take on the seventh-seeded Spanish duo of Feliciano Lopez and Marc Lopez, who toppled the second seeds Nicolas Mahut and Pierre-Hugues Herbert, 6-1, 7-6(4) in the other semi-final.
Bopanna and Cuevas made inroads into Arneodo and Nys’ games thrice and saved all five of the break points they faced. After grabbing the opener, they upped their intensity in the second set to break the French-Monegasque pair twice and seal the win.
First final for Bopanna and Cuevas together
This is the first final for the Indo-Uruguayan pair, who have now played five events together this season after teaming up at ATP Sydney in January. All week at the Monte Carlo Masters, the unseeded duo have proved to be giant-killers.
In the second round, they saw off the fifth seeds Rajeev Ram and Raven Klaasen which they followed up with a big win over the top seeds and Australian Open champions Henri Kontinen and John Peers in the quarter-finals after saving a match point.
The Indian will be aiming for his second title of the season, having started 2017 with the Chennai crown at home, partnering Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan. The World No. 24 made it to yet another final at Dubai where he and Marcin Matkowski of Poland went down in a match tie-break to former Wimbledon champions Jean-Julien Rojer and Horia Tecau.
Nadal reaches 11th Monte Carlo final amidst bizarre umpiring
In the singles competition, the nine-time champion Rafael Nadal reached his 11th final at the Principality with a 6-3, 6-1 win over the 10th seed David Goffin. The King of Clay will meet his compatriot Albert Ramos-Vinolas in an all-Spanish summit clash.
The latter edged the 11th seeded Lucas Pouille, 6-3, 5-7, 6-1 in a 2 hours 15 minute contest to make it to an ATP Masters 1000 final for the first time in his career.
Nadal and Goffin’s semi-final was marred by horrendous umpiring from Cedric Mourier, who incorrectly ruled that a return from the Spaniard had touched the baseline when in reality, it landed way long. That vital point would have given the Belgian a 4-2 lead and could have allowed him to tighten the noose on Rafa, who was struggling in the initial stages of the first set.
Instead, the point had to be replayed even as a vexed Goffin kept on protesting. That invigorated the 14-time Grand Slam winner, who broke back to level the set 3-3.
Nadal did not look back thereafter and simply soared higher and higher while Goffin could never push the setback out of his mind and was a pale shadow of himself for the rest of the match.
