"Indian Express" zooms into the finals

Johnson-Norval made it to their maiden finals beating the Swedish pairing of Aspelin and Landsberg.

Both Leach and Ferreira gave credit to their rivals high percentage of successul serves and winning of vital points for the win. Bhupathi said ‘when we were able to move towards break points and then four-all, it was going to be difficult for anyone to beat us with this kind of crowd support’.

Paes and Bhupathi dominated the first set with an attacking game. After the rivals took their first games, Leach failed to save a break point, giving the Indians a 3-1 lead. Then on, games went on serve, with the Indians always superior. Bhupathi was confidence personified with his first serves, while Paes was his usual self whenever he came up close to the net for returns.

In the vital ninth game, Ferreira double faulted to give Paes and Bhupathi the break point and then the set in 32 minutes.

The second set also went in the same manner and Paes and Bhupathi built up a 3-0 lead,before Leach held serve for a 1-3 scoreline.In the fifth game,with Bhupathi serving,Leach,a left hander, hit two successive forehand returns to the unattended left court. But Bhupathi held the fifth game on advantage.

Leach and Ferreira were in devastating form in the seventhgame, which also seemed to turn in their favour. Paes, who was serving, was 15-30 down and on break point as Bhupathi failed to return a punch volley from Ferreira and Paes’s diving return fell on the net. However, Leach and Ferreira won the game on their second break point to make it 3-4.

Both Paes and Bhupathi started committing errors and seemed to lose concentration. Bhupathi was serving,with the rivals on 4 all and again Leach/Ferrira were on top form, enjoying the advantage on break point. But Bhupathi took the game to deuce through his serve and came up with an overhead lob to win the game 5-4. Ferreira then held serve to make it 5-all. Paes held the 11th to make it 6-5.

Leach’s double fault took the Indians to deuce and they were on match point. But Paes netted an easy volley, putting the visitors on level terms. Deuce was called twice before Bhupathi’s running punch volley put the Indians back on advantage. The Indians finally won the match on the second match point when Leach returned Bhupathi’s shot into the net.

Earlier Donald Johnson of USA and Piet Norval of South Africa made their maiden entry into the Gold Flake ATP tour World Doubles tennis championship finals, beating Simon Aspelin and Johan Landsberg of Sweden 6-4, 5-7, 6-3 in 120 minutes.

In the first set, Johnson and Norval played a loose gameand the latter was broken in the third game. But they made amends for earlier lapses and started serving well, scoring points with decisive counter-attacks. Having won three finals in five appearances during the season, they showed good understanding to wrap up the first set. Landsberg was broken in the sixth and 10th games.

The Swedes won the first three games in the second set andthen were totally at the receving end. Both Johnson and Norval took three games in a row and went on to lead 4-3. Though Aspelin remained unbroken in the two sets, Landsberg dropped serve in the eighth. But the Swedes, having a 20-19 win-loss record this year and 21-22 in their career as partners, fought back well when it mattered and clinched the second set with two service breaks.

The pair worked in tandem and their court coverage was excellent in the vital third set.

Though Johnson was broken in the third game, the two swiftly made amends, breaking Landsberg in the fourth. The sixth game proved to be all important for the Johnson-Norval pair. Aspelin, who had not dropped a game in the match, had to finally surrender to Johnson and Norval on the sixth in the second break point to lead 4-3. Johnson served for the match and at 40-30, Aspelin returned the serve well away from the baseline to help Johnson and Norval progress to the finals.