Andrea Vavassori and Simone Bolelli beat eighth seeds Kevin Krawietz and Tim Puetz 7-5 6-4 in 1 hour and 33 minutes to reach the semifinals in the doubles tournament at the Australian Open.
Vavassori and Bolelli earned two breaks in each set to seal the win in 1 hour and 31 minutes.
Krawietz and Puetz saved a break point at the start of the first set. Bolelli and Vavassori came back from 0-40 down by winning five consecutive games in the sixth game and held serve at deuce. Both teams went on serve until 5-5. The Italian team earned two break points at 15-40 in the 11thgame and converted their second chance to take a 6-5 lead before serving the first set 7-5 with a hold to 15.
Bolelli and Vavassori earned two break points at 15-40 in the third game of the second set. They converted their second chance to take a 3-1 lead, but they had to save a break-back point in the fifth game and two more break points in the seventh games.
Bolelli and Vavassori earned a match point at 30-40 in the ninth game, but they did not convert it. They served out the match at 15 in the 10th game.
Bolelli has reached his third Grand Slam doubles semifinal nine years after winning the Australian Open title and reaching the semifinal at Roland Garros with Fabio Fognini in 2015. Bolelli reached a career-high of number 8 in doubles and won 11 tournaments. He was part of the Italian team, who won the Davis Cup title last November. Vavassori reached the quarter finals in doubles at the Masters 1000 in Rome.
Bolelli and Vavassori are playing the third Grand Slam as a team. They will play against Yannik Hanfmann and Dominik Koepfer.
“We played a very aggressive match. We came back from 0-40 down at 2-3 in the first set and we had to save a break point on Vavassori’s serve in the second set”, said Bolelli.
Tomas Machac and Zhang Zhizhen cruised past Ariel Behar and Adam Pavlasek 6-3 6-1 in just one hour on Margaret Court Arena. Machac and Zhang Zhizhen converted 4 of their 10 break points.
Machac and Zheng had never played together as a team and had just achieved three ATP Tour doubles wins between them. They will face last year’s Indian Wells champions Rohan Bopanna and Matthew Ebden.
