Thaindian News

Cincinnati (Ohio), Aug 19 (IANS) India’s Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi and compatriot Rohan Bopanna and his Pakistani partner Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi are through to the quarterfinals of the men’s doubles at the Western & Southern tennis championships here.

Paes and Bhupathi, seeded third, had an easy 6-4, 6-2 victory over Spanish pair Rafael Nadal and Marc Lopez, while fifth-seeded Bopanna and Quresh were taken to a super tie-breaker by Argentineans Juan Ignacio Chela and Juan Monaco before winning 6-3, 5-7, 10-4, here Thursday.

Paes and Bhupathi will now play Czech Republic pair Tomas Berdych and Radek Stepenek who put out sixth-seeded Robert Linsted of Sweden and Romanian Horia Tecau 6-2, 6-7(3), 10-6.

Boppanna and and Qureshi will run into fourth-seeded Michael Llodra of France and his Serbian partner Nenad Zimonozic, who outlasted American Eric Butorac and Jean-Julien Rojer of Curaco, a former Netherlands Antilles island, 5-7, 6-4,10-5.

If Bopanna and Qureshi can get past the fourth seeds, they will not encounter any more seeds in their half of the draw as second-seeded Max Mirnyi of Belarus and Canadian Daniel Nestor and eighth seeds Jurgen Melzer of Austria and German Phillip Petzschner were knocked out.

Mirnyi and Nestor were beaten 5-7, 7-6 (6), 7-10 by Americans Alex Bogomolov Jr and Steve Johnson, who will now take on Juan Sebastian Cabal and Florian Mayer of Germany. The German pair upset Melzer and Petzschner 7-5, 7-6 (5).

Top-seeded American twins Bob and Mike Bryan were also stretched to a super tie-breaker by Czech Lukas Dlouhy and Ukrainian Alexandr Dolgopolov before making it 6-2, 4-6, 10-1.

Bryans will next play Poland’s Marlusz Frystenberg and Marcin Matkowski who beat American Scott Lipsky and Brazilian Bruna Soares 6-4, 7-5.