Pakistan’s Aisam-ul-Haq and his Indian partner Rohan Bopanna along with India’s Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi 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 Aisam and Bopanna were taken to a super tie-breaker by Argentineans Juan Ignacio Chela and Juan Monaco before winning 6-3, 5-7, 10-4 here on 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.
Aisam and Boppanna 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 Aisam and Bopanna 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 have already been 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.
Aisam-Bopanna and Paes-Bhupathi in quarterfinals
