New York: India's campaign at the US Open ended after the fifth-seeded Indo-Pak pair of Rohan Bopanna and Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi crashed out following a straight-set loss to the Polish pair of Marcin Matkowski and Maruisz Fyrstenberg in the men's doubles semi-final on Friday night.
At the end of an 82-minute battle, the sixth-seeded duo from Poland got the better of the Indo-Pak Express 6-2, 7-6 (7-4).
They will now take on Jurgen Melzer of Austria and Philipp Petzschner of Germany in their first-ever Grand Slam final appearance. The ninth-seeded pair defeated the Italian duo of Simone Bolelli and Fabio Fognini 6-4, 6-7 (3), 6-1 in their semi-final encounter.
Matkowski and Fyrstenberg, who had earlier defeated Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi in the quarter-finals, completely dominated in the first set, converting two of the three break-points they got, besides getting 75 percent of their second serve right as opposed to the 22 percent by Bopanna-Qureshi.
However, the Indo-Pak pair, which had done well at Flushing Meadows having made it to the final last year before eventually losing to the Bryan brothers, got their act together in the second set and managed to pose some threat, taking it to the tie-breaker.
It was indeed a tough fight in the second set as there was little to differentiate between the two sides, but the Polish pair's winning percentage of 90 percent on first serve proved decisive in the end.
Earlier on Friday, Bopanna and Qureshi had to close out their rain-interrupted quarter-final against Britons Colin Fleming and Ross Hutchins. Qureshi was serving for the match at 6-5, 0/15 in the final set on Thursday when rain stopped play. He, however, soon closed out the match 7-5, 2-6, 7-5.
The gruelling three-setter lasted 135 minutes.
Bopanna will now be heading to Tokyo on Sunday, where India will be playing their Davis Cup World Group play-off against Japan from September 18-20.
"Well, our journey at the 2011 US Open has come to a halt by the Polish train today in the semi-finals," Bopanna wrote on his Twitter account.
"On Sunday heading to Japan as it's the time again to wear the India colours and play our Davis Cup tie against Japan in Tokyo next weekend."
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