Aisam Qureshi made a winning start to his Australian Open campaign as he and his partner Jean Jlien Roger of France defeated Ivan Ljubicici of Croatia and Cedric Marcel Steebe of Germany in straight sets, 7-6, 6-3. This was Aisam’s first success with his new partner and he was looking forward to his next match against Phillip Marx of Germany and Adil Shamasdin of Canada. Aisam and partner are seeded 8 in the 64-team draw and if all goes well, are scheduled to meet American Eric Butorac and Bruno Soares in the quarters.
Anaud Clement and Lukas Dlouhy are dangerous floaters in Aisam’s quarter. In a post match chat, Aisam seemed confident of winning his second round match. He stated that he and his partner were a work in progress and would improve as they gained better understanding with each other. All the seeds advanced in the second round apart from David Nalbanadian who was shocked by American John Isner. Earlier, US Open champion Samantha Stosur could not handle the local pressure to succeed and went down tamely in her first round match.
