BHUPATHI & SANTORO WIN DOUBLES TITLE Top seeds Fabrice Santoro and Mahesh Bhupathi captured their second title as a pair in as many outings when they defeated the number two seeds, Leander Paes and Jonas Bjorkman 6-2, 4-6, 6-4. The Santoro/Bhupathi pairing won in Auckland in January this year and won their second title in front of capacity crowd of 5,400. The number one seeds were the better returning team which made the difference tonight as they had 16 break point opportunities whereas Paes and Bjorkman only had four break point opportunities. Santoro is undefeated in doubles in 2004. This doubles title makes it three in a row for Santoro who has now won Auckland, the Australian Open and Dubai. Santoro said: "My opinion was that this was a very high level game of doubles, everything was there. Four good players on the court with many career titles behind them, good quality of tennis in front of a full stadium and at the end it was very tight so we had big emotions." "I'm very happy to play with Mahesh. Every time I have won a title it's because I have been happy next to my partner. I have never won a title with someone I'm not happy to be with. That's the key to the success." Bhupathi said: (On playing Paes) "It's never easy when we play each other. Fabrice told me after the match it's not easy on him because he knows it's not easy on me and Max (Mirnyi) told me the two times we played him last year it's the same feeling." "Every time Fabrice and I return against anyone, there is pressure on them because our strength is our returns. Today we got off to a good start winning the first set 6-2 and we continued to hold many break points throughout the match but luckily we held up because if it had got to 5-5 in the third set, it would have been my serve and it could have got ugly after that." "We have our respective partners, but whenever we have a chance, we will play together." http://www.atptennis.com/en/newsandscores/news/2004/dubai_sunday.asp --

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