Auckland, Jan 17 (IANS) India’s Leander Paes and his South African partner Raven Klaasen, seeded fourth, beat Dominic Inglot and Florin Mergea to win the Heineken Open men’s doubles title here Saturday.
They beat the British-Romanian pairing 7-6 (1), 6-4 at the $519,395 hard court event for their first title this year.
It was the second consecutive final for Paes and Klassen, after finishing runners-up at the Chennai Open.
Stronger service helped the fourth seeds edge their opponentsin in the first set.
Both teams were poor with their breakpoints conversion and failed to grasp their chances and in the end it had to be decided in the tie-break.
The second set was again a close affair but Paes and Klaasen managed to convert two breakpoint opportunities out of five to take home the title.