Thaindian News

Indian Wells, March 17 (IANS) India’s Somdev Devvarman went down fighting, 5-7, 4-6, to World No 1 Rafael Nadal of Spain in the pre-quarter-finals of the BNP Paribas ATP Tour 1000 tournament here Wednesday night.

Another Indian, Rohan Bopanna, and his Pakistani partner Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi stormed into the doubles semi-finals, beating Serbian pair Novak Djokovic and Viktor Troicki 6-1, 7-6(5).

Somdev played terrific tennis to stretch the left-handed Spaniard and with a little luck he would have served for the first set had he converted a break point to go 6-5 up. It was Somdev who had an early break of serve, but Nadal quickly broke back in the fourth game.

Somdev landed his first serve consistently. Ironically, it was his serve that let him down in the crucial 12th game of the first set and the 10th in the second when he started with double-faults and lost both the games at love.

In an absorbing match, lasting an hour and 55 minutes, Somdev fought on level terms with Nadal and the Spaniard had to dig deep to quell the resistance.

Bopanna and Qureshi, who had earlier stunned Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi, continued their great form to prevail over the Serbs.

The Indo-Pak Express was not broken at all, though the pair saved four break points, while they broke Serbs thrice.

Bopanna and Quresh await the winners of the match between Scotland’s Murray brothers, Andy-Jamie, and Ukranian Alexandr Dolgoplov and Belgian Malisse.