Bopanna-Qureshi lose Pilot Pen final

NEW HAVEN - India’s Rohan Bopanna and Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi of Pakistan lost to Sweden’s Robert Lindstedt and Romanian Horia Tecau 6-4, 7-5 in the final of the Pilot Pen tennis tournament.

Lindstedt and Tecau, the Wimbledon finalists, claimed their fourth title of the season and boosted their chances of qualifying for the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals after their victory here Saturday.

The Swedish-Romanian combination defeated Bopanna and Qureshi, who shocked second seeds Mahesh Bhupathi of India and Max Mirnyi of Belarus in the semifinals, for the third time in three meetings this season.

Lindstedt and Tecau added to titles won earlier in the year in Casablanca, ’s-Hertogenbosch and Bastad. Lindstedt won his 10th ATP World Tour title while Tecau won his fifth (all this year).

“Since we started in March, we’ve had our ups and downs,” Lindstedt said.

“It’s tough getting started because both me and Horia, we have a pretty strong will, we like to see our tennis in a certain way. I think we’re both learning to give up part of our own way of looking at tennis in order to help out each other. When we connect like that, play well, we’re a very dangerous team. We play very aggressive and quick doubles,” he said.

Tecau added: “I think trust and confidence are two most important things. We learned how to trust each other, how to be confident in each other’s game. We practise well together and we managed to find a good relationship on court, like a good attitude and a good way to be on court. That made a big difference for us to play good matches and lose or win those tough matches.”

It was Bopanna-Qureshi’s third tour-level final this year. The India-Pakistani pair were finalists in Nice and Casablanca earlier in the year. The two captured their first ATP World Tour doubles title in Johannesburg in February.