St Petersburg Open: Indian pair of Leander Paes and Purav Raja progress in semifinals

St Petersburg, September 22: Star Indian pair of Leander Paes and Purav Raja on Friday registered a dominating victory over the New Zealand and Brazil duo of Marcus Daniell and Marcelo Demoliner and progressed into the semi-finals of St Petersburg Open which is being held in Saint Petersburg, Russia.

 

The Indian duo thrashed Marcus Daniell and Marcelo Demoliner in the straight sets by 6-4, 6-2 in a match that lasted for one hour and seven minutes. The Indian pair who came together on the ATP World Tour converted four of the 10 break points they earned and saved three of the five break points they faced on their serves.

Keeping up the momentum in the game Leander Paes and Purav Raja registered an easy victory. The Indian duo will now clash with Chilean J. Peralta and Argentinian H. Zeballos in the semi-finals of the tournament. Earlier, Indian pair defeated Fabio Fognini and James Cerretani by 6-3, 6-4. However, in the last-eight stage, Paes and Raja are up against fourth seeds Marcus Daniell and Marcelo Demoliner, who rallied to beat Austrians Julian Knowle and Alexander Peya 3-6, 6-4, 10-6 in their first-round match.

Leander Paes is one of the most successful professional Indian tennis players, he has received the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award, India's highest sporting honour, in 1996–97, the Arjuna Award in 1990; the Padma Shri award in 2001 and its 3rd Highest Civilian Award the Padma Bhushan in January 2014 for his outstanding contribution to tennis in India. He is considered to be one of the best doubles and mixed doubles players of all time, having achieved a career Grand Slam in each discipline. While Purav Raja reached his highest ATP singles ranking of World No. 813, whilst his highest doubles ranking of 54 was reached on 13 February 2017.