Sydney, January 11: India's Rohan Bopanna and Edouard Roger-Vasselin, who joined forces for the 2018 season, fought their hearts out before losing the semifinal of the ATP Sydney International to world number one team of Lukasz Kubot and Marcelo Melo, here on Thursday (January 11).

The fourth seeded Indo-French pair gave a scare to the top-seeded Polish-Brazilian pair before losing the closely-fought semifinal 4-6, 7-5, 8-10 in one hour and 29 minutes. There was not much of a difference in the two teams as the winners won 70 points to the 64 of Bopanna and Roger- Vasselin. They broke each other twice in the contest.

The victors will now fight it out with Germany's Jan- Lennard Struff and Romanian Viktor Troicki, who toppled second seeds Jean-Julien Rojer and Horia Tecau 7-6(5) 6-1.

It was the last tournament in build up to the first Grand Slam of the season, the Australian Open. Bopanna had played the season-opening Tata Open Maharashtra with Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan in Pune, losing in the quarterfinals.