Contrasting wins for Lee, Hesh in mixed doubles 1st round

Paris: Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi recorded contrasting victories with their respective partners in the first round of the mixed doubles event at the French Open.

The seventh seeded Indo-Czech pair of Paes and Iveta Benesova brushed aside Frenchwoman Aravine Rezai and her Bulgarian partner Grigor DiMitrov 6-3, 6-1 in only 52 minutes. But Bhupathi and his Chinese partner Jie Zheng had to fight hard as they pipped Petra Kvitova of Czech Republic and Ukrain`s Sergiy Stakhovsky 6-7 (3-7), 6-0, 10-8 in a three-setter. The fifth seeded pair required 79 minutes to move into the second round. It was cakewalk for Paes and Benesova as they played flawless tennis. The first set was over in only 29 minutes while it took them a mere 23 minutes to wrap up the second set.The Indo-Czech duo converted five out of the nine break points they got and hit around 84 percent of the winners on the first serve. Their successful first serve percentage was an astounding 74 percent compared to 57 percent from their opponents. Leander`s doubles partner Bhupathi had a tough time in his first round match after losing the first set in tie-breaker 44 minutes.However Bhupathi and Zheng got their act together in the second set as they didn`t drop a single game to win 6-0 in only 22 minutes. The super tie-breaker saw well fought battle but the more experienced Bhupathi and his Chinese partner held their nerves to wrap up the proceedings. PTI