Doha ATP 250/Dubai ATP500- February 18-March 5, 2023

[sameerph]

Both doubles pairs play tomorrow-

[R1] Yuki Bhambri (IND) / Saketh Myneni (IND) vs. Tim Puetz (GER) /Jan-Lennard Struff (GER)

[R1] (3) Rohan Bopanna (IND) / Mathew Ebden (AUS) vs. (WC) Liam Broady (GBR) / Alexander Zverev (GER)

Yuki-Saki have a much tougher match-up than last week against a pair who reached SF last week before losing to Rohan-Ebden. Rohan-Ebden play a pair of 2 strong singles players.

[prashanthm]

Both doubles pairs play tomorrow-

[R1] Yuki Bhambri (IND) / Saketh Myneni (IND) vs. Tim Puetz (GER) /Jan-Lennard Struff (GER)

[R1] (3) Rohan Bopanna (IND) / Mathew Ebden (AUS) vs. (WC) Liam Broady (GBR) / Alexander Zverev (GER)

Yuki-Saki have a much tougher match-up than last week against a pair who reached SF last week before losing to Rohan-Ebden. Rohan-Ebden play a pair of 2 strong singles players.

Puetz was only one half of the team that lost to Bops/Ebden last week. Struff, meanwhile, played a challenger in Bahtsom last week and lost to Kokinakis in the Singles SF and didn't play doubles... In fact, Struff hasn't played any doubles this year so far... So, this is a decent opportunity for Yuki/Saki to win their R1 match...

[sameerph]

Thanks, Prashanth for that clarification. Yuki/Saki indeed came thru in straight sets against the German pairing and Rohan/Ebden came back from a set down to win against British/German pair. And they meet each other in QF.

[R1] Yuki Bhambri (IND) / Saketh Myneni (IND) d. Tim Puetz (GER) /Jan-Lennard Struff (GER) 63 64

[R1] (3) Rohan Bopanna (IND) / Mathew Ebden (AUS) d. (WC) Liam Broady (GBR) / Alexander Zverev (GER) 57 61 10-3

Next,

[QF] Yuki Bhambri (IND) / Saketh Myneni (IND) vs. (3) Rohan Bopanna (IND) / Mathew Ebden (AUS)

[PKBasu]

Nice win for Yuki-Saketh at Doha. This takes Yuki to a career-high of 78 in the live doubles rankings, while Saketh is 79 (slightly below his career-high of 74 a few weeks ago). They are high enough now to make the next Slam main draw (FO), but of course they will have a lot of Challenger points (including 5 titles) to defend over the next few months.

[prashanthm]

Yes! Let's see who comes out on top in the QFs

[sameerph]

Close win for Rohan-Ebden.

[QF] (3) Rohan Bopanna (IND) / Mathew Ebden (AUS) d. Yuki Bhambri (IND) / Saketh Myneni (IND) 16 64 11-9

Happy for Rohan but Yuki-Saki need to win such type of matches. They could have gone further in this tournament with draw opening as top 2 seeds are both knocked out. One title or maybe couple of finals will cement their place in all 4 slams of the year. Right now it is touch and go for them for slams.

[PKBasu]

Yes, Yuki-Saketh had a big chance after winning the first set 6-1, but they let themselves down in the second set. In the STB, Bopanna-Ebden were up most of the time -- apart from a brief period when Yuki-Saketh went up 5-4 (with a couple of serves for Saketh to come), but couldn't consolidate, instead letting the opponents win several points in a row. Close but no cigar! They do need to be winning these close matches in order to move up.

[arjun2761]

Agree. YukiSaki have shown that they can compete at the ATP level. They have yet to show that they can win consistently though.

They have the tools to win but are inconsistent even within a match and the score line of this game kinda shows that as well. Hopefully, this is all part of the transition experience and they can put it together later this season.

Even in singles, often the difference between the upper levels of the Challenger tour and the middling ATP tour is focus and consistency. Typically, the talent/skills gap isn't huge. Of course, the upper end of the ATP tour generally have skills that are exceptional in addition to better consistency.

[Dinesh]

Rohan and Matt Ebden - Doubles Main Draw acceptance
YukiSaki - Doubles Qualifying Draw acceptance
Yuki - 2 spots out of the Singles Qualifying List (one MDWC, 3 QDWCs to be awarded).

Assume Yuki will play singles again for the paycheck, since this is a 500 level tournament.

Mods, feel free to merge this to the Doha thread, if need to be.

[sameerph]

Merged the Dubai ATP thread with Doha one.

Rohan and Ebden have moved to the final in Doha.

[SF] (3) Rohan Bopanna (IND) / Mathew Ebden (AUS) d. Daniel Evans (GBR) /Jonny O'Mara (GBR) 64 63

Second consecutive final for Rohan and Ebden.

[F] (3) Rohan Bopanna (IND) / Mathew Ebden (AUS) vs. Constant Lestienne (FRA) /Botic van de Zandschulp (NED)

[Dinesh]

Doha = ATP 250
Dubai = ATP 500

[Dinesh]

Yuki is now only a spot away from making the Q draw at Dubai. Hope he gets in and gets to cash in on some big dollars. Will the organizers award him and Saki a doubles main draw wildcard?

[arjun2761]

Interesting that they have a qualifying draw for doubles. I think that is something more tournaments should have.

[sameerph]

Interesting that they have a qualifying draw for doubles. I think that is something more tournaments should have.

All ATP 500's have a small qualifying draw of only 4. Neither ATP 250's or 1000's have it. I think few years back there used to be qualifying draw for doubles for ATP tournaments. That helped challenger guys move up faster to ATP level. Now they go to that level only after winning 6-8 challenger titles which is tough.

[jayakris]

[F] (3) Rohan Bopanna (IND) / Mathew Ebden (AUS) d. Constant Lestienne (FRA) /Botic van de Zandschulp (NED), 67(5) 64 [10-6]

Congrats to Bops! Bops moves up to #15 in live rankings. Ebden to #34.