Bopanna-Cuevas clinch Monte Carlo doubles title

Monte Carlo [Monaco]: Indian tennis ace Rohan Bopanna and his Uruguayan partner Pablo Cuevas defeated seventh-seeded Spaniards Feliciano Lopez and Marc Lopez to clinch the men’s doubles title of Monte Carlo Masters here on Sunday.

After going down in the second set, the Indo-Uruguayan pair rebounded strongly to register a 6-3, 3-6, 10-4 win in the summit clash that lasted 74 minutes.

In the first set, Bopanna and Cuevas broke their opponents’ serve to go 3-1 up. They held on to their lead from there and closed out the set in 28 minutes.

In the second set, the Indo-Uruguayan pair lost serve early to fall behind 1-3 and eventually lost the set in 35 minutes.

However, in the super tiebreaker, it was all Bopanna and Cuevas as they took a 6-0 lead and did not leave any room for Feliciano and Marc Lopez, ultimately winning the tie breaker in just 11 minutes.

Bopanna, who adds to his Chennai Open crown (with Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan) this year, is now 16-24 lifetime in doubles finals and 4-4 in ATP World Tour Masters 1000 title matches.

Cuevas improved to 7-7 in team finals, also adding a second trophy in 2017 to his Rio Open presented by Claro run (with Carreno Busta).(ANI)