Johnson-Norval Win Doubles Title

BANGALORE, India (AP) â€” Donald Johnson of the United States and Piet Norval of South Africa are the world doubles champions. <br><br>Johnson and Norval survived a marathon first set and beat Leander

Monday, December 18th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

BANGALORE, India (AP) â€” Donald Johnson of the United States and Piet Norval of South Africa are the world doubles champions.

Johnson and Norval survived a marathon first set and beat Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi of India 7-6 (8), 6-3, 6-4 to win the World Doubles Championship Sunday. Norval and Johnson had lost to the Indian pair in the round-robin segment.

Paes and Bhupathi are now winless in three appearances in the tournament's title match.

They started strong, breaking Johnson's serve in the very first game, but they couldn't keep the momentum going.

Paes was broken in the fourth game and Johnson held his serve for 2-2. They stayed on serve into the tiebreaker, when Johnson and Norval converted their second break point after saving two, finally ending the first set after more than one hour.

In the second set, Bhupathi had problems getting his first serve in and served four double-faults, losing serve in the fifth and ninth games.

Johnson, 32, from Chapel Hill, N.C., struggled with his serve initially but found his touch in the third set. The Indians' only chance came in the fifth game, when they held three break points on Johnson's serve but failed to convert.

Johnson and Norval continued to exert pressure and broke Bhupathi's serve in the 10th game to wrap up their first title.

``I rate this tournament at par with the Grand Slam events. And as far as I am concerned, it is my first major title. It was a great way to end the season after having dominated the latter part of it,'' Norval said.

Johnson said playing Paes and Bhupathi in the earlier round had helped.

``It sure helped us get used to playing before a noisy crowd rooting for them. But they are a great team and after their wonderful performance here, I am sure they will be back with a vengeance next year,'' he said.

Paes and Bhupathi said they had been outplayed by their opponents.

'' We played high quality tennis the whole week, but were beaten today by the better team. The first set was tight but we went off the boil after that. I would say, we were 10 per cent off our best,'' said Paes.