MELBOURNE: Indian tennis duo of Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi entered the second round of the men's doubles in Australian Open after they rallied from a set down to beat Ivo Karlovic and Dusan Vemica 5-7 6-3 6-0, here today.
In pic: Leander Paes (l) and Mahesh Bhupati
In another match, India's Rohan Bopanna and Pakistan's Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi outplayed the Brazilian pair of Franco Ferreiro and Andre Sa 6-3 6-0 to advance to the next round. For the "Indian Express" duo of Paes and Bhupathi, this is their first victory together at Grand Slam after a nine- year gap.
The third-seeded pair, who teamed up together after almost a decade in a bid to add the only Grand Slam title missing in their cupboard, faced a scare in the first set of the opening round as they went down 5-7.
However, the Indian doubles specialists did not waste much time to get into the groove in the second, running away to a 6-3 win. The last set saw Lee-Hesh toying with the Croat-Serbian pair before they wrapped it up 6-0 to cross the first hurdle at the year's first Grand Slam, in a contest that lasted over one and a half hours. Paes and Bhupathi had last played in a Grand Slam in Australian Open 2002. And in all these years till 2011 they just paired together to represent the country in the Davis Cup, the Asian Games and the Olympics.
Paes-Bhupathi will meet the winner of the match between Spain's Feliciano Lopez and Juan Monaco of Argentina and the Australian pair of Marinko Matosevic and John Millman in the second round. Meanwhile, "Indo-Pak Express", the runners-up of last year's U S Open, had a very easy outing today.
The 10th-seeded pair hardly spared a chance for its unseeded opponents to pose any threat, as they breezed away to seal the match in their favour in just 49 minutes. Bopanna-Qureshi will next play Frenchmen Jeremy Chardy and Arnaud Clement. -PTI
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In another match, India's Rohan Bopanna and Pakistan's Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi outplayed the Brazilian pair of Franco Ferreiro and Andre Sa 6-3 6-0 to advance to the next round. For the "Indian Express" duo of Paes and Bhupathi, this is their first victory together at Grand Slam after a nine- year gap.
The third-seeded pair, who teamed up together after almost a decade in a bid to add the only Grand Slam title missing in their cupboard, faced a scare in the first set of the opening round as they went down 5-7.
However, the Indian doubles specialists did not waste much time to get into the groove in the second, running away to a 6-3 win. The last set saw Lee-Hesh toying with the Croat-Serbian pair before they wrapped it up 6-0 to cross the first hurdle at the year's first Grand Slam, in a contest that lasted over one and a half hours. Paes and Bhupathi had last played in a Grand Slam in Australian Open 2002. And in all these years till 2011 they just paired together to represent the country in the Davis Cup, the Asian Games and the Olympics.
Paes-Bhupathi will meet the winner of the match between Spain's Feliciano Lopez and Juan Monaco of Argentina and the Australian pair of Marinko Matosevic and John Millman in the second round. Meanwhile, "Indo-Pak Express", the runners-up of last year's U S Open, had a very easy outing today.
The 10th-seeded pair hardly spared a chance for its unseeded opponents to pose any threat, as they breezed away to seal the match in their favour in just 49 minutes. Bopanna-Qureshi will next play Frenchmen Jeremy Chardy and Arnaud Clement. -PTI
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