For a tournament bereft of stars, local heroes Rohan Bopanna and Aisam Qureshi rose to the occasion and went all the way to Sunday's final. They fought like warriors in the championship match but eventually fell short from claiming their first ATP title.
With all the players on court equipped with a killer serve, there were no breaks of serve, but the exuberant Indo-Pak duo went down 6-7 (3), 6-7 (5) to third seeds Jarkko Nieminen of Finland and Sweden's Robert Lindstedt in the final of the Kingfisher Airlines Mumbai Open.
Earlier, top seed Richard Gasquet of France lifted his fifth career title after a commanding 6-3, 6-4 victory over Belgium's surprise finalist Olivier Rochus. The Frenchman thus won the title without dropping a set during the week.
Though Rochus, with all his defensive brilliance, gave the world number 14 his toughest fight all week, Gasquet's superior talent pulled him through without too many bruises.
The Frenchman broke Rochus in the first game of the match and raced to 3-0. He kept the lead to pocket the first set 6-3 in 36 minutes.
In the second, the players traded breaks in the first two games. Gasquet was taken to deuce in the sixth game, but the top seed held through and went 4-3 up as Rochus served a double-fault at break point.
"It was a tough match and tiring but I'm happy to win," said Gasquet. "It's nice to win my first title in Asia here in India and I hope to come back next year."
The capacity-crowd at the Cricket Club of India, their appetite whipped from the tough singles final, were all geared up for a double feast.
For India's Bopanna, it was heart-break all over again as he lost the second successive doubles final in Mumbai. Last year, he and compatriot Mustafa Ghouse had gone down 4-6, 7-6, 8-10 to Mahesh Bhupathi and Mario Ancic.
With Qureshi, Bopanna had won four straight challengers, and the pair was hoping to translate their winning run at the ATP level.
They held their nerve and served exceptionally well to run the world number 29 pair close.
"It's always disappointing losing a final, but we played very well. The only difference was the way they served in the tie-break. We gave everything we had, especially in the second set, it could've gone either way."
The Indo-Pak duo earned only one break point in the match -- in the 11th game on Linsdtedt's serve. But they couldn't convert it as Bopanna returned into the net and Qureshi hit a lob long at deuce.
"I was disappointed with my shot selection today." said Qureshi. "I generally don't go for a lob but don't know what got into my head. It went long, but if it had gone in everybody would've praised the shot."
Bopanna-Qureshi also came back from 5-3 down in the tie-break but could not ride on the support wave into the match tie-break. As Bopanna hit a forehand long, the crowd settled into a collective gasp before applauding the splendid show put up by both teams.
Like the feel-good story they had started with, the Pakistani ended it with a hope that they could continue their success into the Grand Slams as well.
"I am happy to share my success with Bopanna, and that he is such a big part of my career. We are playing very well, he's a great friend of mine and if we continue to play the same way I don't see any reason why we can't do well in ATP and the Grand Slams."
