One hour and 43 minutes; it was a job well done by India. The doubles rubber against Pakistan was only a formality India had to get over with and their ace duo of Leander Paes [Images] and Mahesh Bhupathi [Images] made little fuss of it.
"It was a clinical performance," said Paes after he and Bhupathi beat Asim Shafik and Jalil Khan 6-2, 6-3, 6-1 at the Brabourne stadium in Mumbai on Saturday. "It was really nice to get our 19th win under the belt. The result wasn't out of the ordinary. We just had to concentrate and focus on the job and didn't want to be on court too long."
Paes also said that Pakistan had entered the game in a negative frame of mind.
"Pakistan's captain had gone on record saying that India were 1-0 up because of our doubles combination. I thought they had lost the match even before they came to Mumbai."
For Pakistan's Shafik and Khan, it was a great experience playing against an opponent they rate as "one of the top three Davis Cup teams in the world."
"I wasn't daunted by the task at hand. Of course we knew they are a great pair but we wanted to make sure that they don't just roll us over," said Shafik. "I don't play with Jalil back home and we don't make a great combination because I come up to the net and he tends to hang back. But that's the best combination we had on hand."
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Pakistan got their only break in the match when they broke Bhupathi's serve to level the second set 3-3. But the Indian pair bounced back with a break and took the set 6-3."I got a couple of returns in and Mahesh wasn't looking match sharp. Had we won the next game and gone up 4-3 it could've been a little different."
Pakistan's non-playing captain Rashid Malik said that the result of the match was expected and that it was now upto his top two players to do the job in Sunday's reverse singles.
"We wanted our number one and two to rest and be fit for tomorrow," said Malik. "Whoever plays tomorrow be it Prakash (Amritraj) or Leander (Paes) or Rohan (Bopanna) we will be ready for it. I have complete faith in my players."
The Indian camp was also confident going into the last day and said that the onus would be on Pakistan to come up with the goods on Sunday.
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