Murray/Soares Battle Into Acapulco Quarter-finals
Jamie Murray and Bruno Soares began their quest for a third Acapulco title on Monday with a hard-fought 6-7(4), 6-2, 10-1 victory over Rohan Bopanna and Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi at the Abierto Mexicano Telcel presentado por HSBC. The 2017 and 2018 champions, who are now 9-1 on the 2021 season, could not convert one set point at 6-5, deciding point Deuce in the first set.
This year’s Great Ocean Road Open titlists will now challenge British brothers Ken Skupski and Neal Skupski, who defeated Diego Schwartzman and Joao Sousa 6-4, 7-6(7). The Skupskis recovered from 1-4 down in the second set and saved three set points at 4/6 and 6/7 in the second set tie-break.
Meanwhile, top seeds Marcel Granollers and Horacio Zeballos swept past Marin Cilic and Oliver Marach 6-2, 6-3 to set up a clash against Australian qualifiers Luke Saville and John-Patrick Smith, who beat German wild cards Alexander Zverev and Mischa Zverev 6-2, 7-5. Saville and Smith won the first four games of the match.
At the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships, Frenchmen Jeremy Chardy and Fabrice Martin saved one set point at 6/7 in the second tie-break en route to beating Marcus Daniell and Philipp Oswald 6-4, 7-6(7). Chardy and Martin will now look to record their second straight win over Croatians Nikola Mektic and Mate Pavic in the quarter-finals, having beaten the in-form second seeds at last week’s Qatar ExxonMobil Open.
Elsewhere, Germans Kevin Krawietz and Jan-Lennard Struff defeated Henri Kontinen and Jordan Thompson 6-7(7), 7-6(4), 10-6. Krawietz and Struff held two set points at 5/6 and 6/7 in first set tie-break and now challenge third seeds Wesley Koolhof and Lukasz Kubot..