Bopanna-Lu storm into semifinals

Rohan BopannaIndian tennis star Rohan Bopanna and his Taipei partner Yen Hsun Lu have reached into the semifinals of the men's doubles event of the USD 1,25,000 Tashkent ATP Challenger at the Olympic tennis Stadium in Tashkent on Wednesday.

The second seeded Indo-Taipei pair defeated Inigo Cervantes Huegun and Guillermo Plaso of Spain in straight sets 6-3, 6-4 in the quarterfinal to move to the next round.

Bopanna-Lu duo will now clash with the local pair of Denis Istomin and Murad Inoyatov in the semifinal. Denis-Murad thrashed the Russian pair of Michail Elgin and Evgeny Kirillov 6-3 6-0 in the quarterfinal.

Meanwhile, the Indian campaign in the men's singles has come to an end as the seventh seeded Somdev Devvarman has went down to 210th ranked Rusian Alexandre Kudryavstev 3-6 4-6 in the second round. Somdev pocketed a cheque of USD 2150 and gained 9 ATP points.

In another match, the top seeded and defending champion Yen Hsun Lu of Taipei crashed out after going down to Oleksandr Dolgopolov Jr. of Ukraine 6-7(3), 6-3, 6-3 in the second round of men's singles.