Mahesh Bhupathi and Leander Paes have qualified for the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals in London in November after their win over Thomaz Bellucci and Ivan Dodig on Friday at the Shanghai Rolex Masters.
The Indian team will accompany The Bryan Brothers, Michael Llodra and Nenad Zimonjic, Max Mirnyi and Daniel Nestor and this year’s US Open Champions Jurgen Melzer and Philipp Petzschner. The last three spots for this prestigious event are still to be decided over the next couple of weeks.
Bhupathi and Paes are currently ranked No. 4 on the ATP Doubles Team Rankings. On the individual ranking Bhupathi is World No. 6 and Paes is sitting at No. 8. The Indian duo have claimed three titles this year in Chennai, Miami and Cincinnati. This successful combination will play the year end Masters for the sixth time in their careers. They first qualified in 1997 when they ended up runners up.
Robert Lindstedt and Horia Tecau, Rohan Bopanna and Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi and Mariusz Fyrstenberg and Marcin Matkowski will have to work hard to qualify for the last remaining spots in the Battle for London.
Players qualified for the singles event so far are: Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, Andy Murray, Roger Federer and David Ferrer.
The Barclays ATP World Tour Finals will be held at London’s O2 Arena between 20 November to 27 November, 2011.