India’s Rohan Bopanna and his partner Marcin Matkowski from Poland reached the doubles semi-finals of the Dubai Open. The unseeded duo ousted Bopanna’s former partner, Romania’s Florin Mergea and Serbia’s Viktor Troicki, 6-3, 6-4 in the quarter-finals.

This is the second-best performance of the season for Bopanna, who is playing with his fourth different partner of the season. He had earlier won the season-opening Chennai Open with Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan.

In the opening round, Bopanna and Matkowski had shocked second seeds Ivan Dodig and Marcel Granollers 5-7, 6-3, 11-9 and have not looked back since then.

The semi-final could be tricky as Bopanna could run into compatriot Leander Paes if he and his Spanish partner Guillermo Garcia-Lopez go past third seeds Daniel Nestor from Canada and Frenchman Edouard Roger-Vasselin.