After their stirring win to lift the Australian Open men’s doubles crown at Melbourne Park, Matthew Ebden and Rohan Bopanna are on the brink of tasting more success at the Miami Open.
Australian Ebden and his 44-year-old Indian partner Bopanna are through to the final of the ATP 1000 event following a straight-forward 6-1 6-4 victory over Marcel Granoliers and Horacio Zeballos.
The tournament’s No.1 seeds showed their dominance from the start and never let up against Spaniard Granoliers and the Argentine.
In fact, Ebden and Bopanna faced a far more difficult encounter in their quarter-final where they came perilously close to being eliminated by Dutchman Sem Verbeek and fellow Australian John-Patrick Smith.
They were made to battle hard before winning 3-6 7-6 (7-4) and 10-7.
In the semi-final they broke serve three times and didn’t face a single break point.
The popular pairing of Ebden and Bopanna gave local fans plenty of joy at the Australian Open with their chest bump celebrations following their 7-6 (7-0) 7-5 win over Italians Simone Bolelli and Andrea Vavassori on Rod Laver Arena.
They will now meet Austin Krajicek and Ivan Dodig, who were involved in an almighty struggle against Germans Kevin Krawietz and Tim Putz before progressing to the final.
The No.2 seeds finally emerged victorious, winning 6-4 6-7 (7-4) 10-7.