Paes-Bhupathi pair clinches Miami title, become World No.1

Miami (USA), Apr 3 (PTI) Adding to the joy of India's
cricket World Cup triumph, veteran Indian tennis players
Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi won their second title of the
season by clinching the Sony Ericsson Open here to become
number one in the ATP World Tour Doubles Team Rankings.
Third seeded Bhupathi and Paes rallied to beat second
seeded Belarusian-Canadian pair of Max Mirnyi and Daniel
Nestor 6-7(5) 6-2 10-5.
Paes had, in fact won the title even last year with Lukas
Dlouhy but for Bhupathi it was his first career title at
Crandon Park.
"The key (to us winning) was just fighting as a team. Like
Leander said, we didn't play our best match of the week. All
four of us were tentative in the beginning," Bhupathi told
'sonyericssonopen.com'.
The Indian Express duo were up 6-5 in the first set but
let it slip by conceding a break and never had a lead in the
tie-break.
"We had a chance to win that set but we didn't take it --
threw away the breaker pretty much," Bhupathi said.
Bhupathi and Paes found their rhythm in the second set
and were also helped by a double fault by Nestor in the fourth
game. That enabled the Indians to take a 3-1 lead and they
never looked back after that.
"My level dropped after the first set. We didn't get
enough balls in play and they served better as the match went
on. Max played well, so I feel bad about that. But we played
against a tough team today," Nestor admitted.
The win takes the Indians ahead of World number one Bob
and Mike Bryan for first place in the ATP Doubles Team
Rankings and in the battle to qualify for the Barclays ATP
World Tour Finals.
It is Paes and Bhupathi's second team title of the year,
following the Chennai Open at the start of the season.
"It's still early for us. The season is broken down into
four segments -- this is just the first of them. If we're
still No. 1 after the US Open, then we'll start getting
excited," said Bhupathi.
Paes finished runner-up to Nestor and Zimonjic with Lukas
Dlouhy last year at the French Open, after he and the Czech
won it in 2009.
"We love playing on the dirt. We got a month off now to
get ourselves physically fit and get ready for a lot of long
matches on the clay," Paes said.
"The clay definitely helps us because we train so hard
for it over the years but at the same time there are a lot of
singles guys who play well on the dirt too. At the French
Open, I think it's one of the hardest slams to win, but if
we're physically right, I think it will be good," he added.