Leander Paes and his partner Yen-Hsun Lu were defeated in the semi-finals in Delray Beach in straight sets 6-2, 6-1 by the third seeded team of Filipino Treat Huey and Belarusian Max Mirnyi, on Saturday.
Huey and Mirnyi saved all three break points on their serve and broke their opponents four times in the course of the 58-minute duration of the match. While Paes and Lu finished with zero aces and three double faults, Huey and Mirnyi stacked up three aces and four double faults.
The seeds also won 82% of their first serve points as compared to Paes and Lu’s 63%, and also secured a relatively higher margin of points off their second serves, as compared to their opponents – 53% to 38%.
Paes and Lu’s loss came on the heels of their tough 7-6, 3-6, 10-7 win over the Bryan Brothers, the tournament top-seeds, in the quarter-finals on Friday.
Huey and Mirnyi will take on the second seeded South African-American combo of Raven Klaasen and Rajeev Ram in the final on Sunday. Klaasen and Ram defeated the Israeli-American duo of Jonathan Erlich and Scott Lipsky in their semi-final, 6-3, 3-6, 10-1.