Third seeds Mahesh Bhupathi and Todd Woodbridge rallied from a set deficit to beat Rainer Schuettler of Germany and Mikhail Youzhny of Russia and book their berth in the semifinals of the Dubai Open Tennis championship in Dubai.
The Indo-Australian pair got the better of Schuettler and Youzhny 4-6, 6-4, 6-2 to set up a showdown with unseeded Czech pair of Martin Damm and Radek Stepanek for a berth in the summit clash.
Damm and Stepanek upset top seed Mark Knowles of Baharain and and Daniel Nestor of Canada 6-4, 6-4 in the other quarterfinal.
"It's definitely a tough team to beat as both of them are strong singles players," Bhupathi said after the match late last night.
Bhupathi said they was under pressure as he missed many volleys, which cost them the first set. After losing the first, Woodbridge and Bhupathi regrouped well and took the next two sets and the match.
Coming together for the first time on a long-term basis from the start of this season, Bhupathi and Woodbridge have already won a title in Sydney.
"We can only get better as we go on," Woodbridge noted.
"I think this is a perfect partnership. And tonight we showed how we can find the way to get ourselves out of trouble out there in the middle," he added.
"There's no team we cannot beat. We can win anything as long as we play to our full potential."
