Melbourne: Leander Paes kept himself in
contention for twin titles after making the quarter-finals of
both men's doubles and mixed doubles events at the Australian
Open here today.
Paes made a good start to the day when he and his Czech
partner Lukas Dlouhy, seeded third, beat the American pair of
John Isner and Sam Querrey 6-3, 7-5 in the second round of the
men's doubles competition.
They will next take on the winners of the match between
fifth seeds Lukasz Kubot/Oliver Marach and the unseeded duo of
Ivo Karlovic/Dusan Vemic.
The next match, as top seed with partner Cara Black, was
hardly a trouble as they easily shut out Akgul Amanmuradova
and Rik De Voest in straight sets.
The Indo-Zimbabwean pair beat the Uzbek-South African
pair 6-4, 6-2 in the second round of the mixed doubles event.
In the junior event, Vaidik Munshaw's campaign was over
as he lost boys' doubles first round along with Chinese
partner Chuhan Wang.
They were humbled 2-6, 6-7(3) by fourth seeds Liang-Chi
Huang of Taipei and Yasutaka Uchiyama of Japan.
In men's fourth-round matches, 2008 champion Novak
Djokovic beat Poland's Lukasz Kubot 6-1, 6-2, 7-5 to set up a
quarterfinal against 2008 runner-up Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, who
held off Spain's Nicolas Almagro 6-3, 6-4, 4-6, 6-7 (6), 9-7.
It was No. 10-seeded Tsonga's first five-set match in 11
Grand Slam tournaments.
No. 6 Nikolay Davydenko held off 2009 semifinalist
Fernando Verdasco 6-2, 7-5, 4-6, 6-7 (5), 6-3 to extend his
winning streak to 13.
Davydenko was only two points from finishing off Verdasco
in four sets but the Spaniard rallied to win the last four
points of the tiebreaker and force a fifth.
Davydenko fended off three break points and held to open
the fifth set, then broke 9th-seeded Verdasco's serve in a
crucial sixth game. He finished it off in just under four
hours.
Verdasco lost to eventual champion Rafael Nadal in the
semifinals here last year in the longest match in the
tournament's history. He didn't help himself against
Davydenko, with 20 double-faults and 81 unforced errors.
Davydenko has beaten both No. 1 Roger Federer and No. 2
Nadal in runs to his last two titles and it has certainly
helped his profile.
He got onto the center court before the quarterfinals,
and figured it was his first win on the main court at
Melbourne Park.
PTI
First Published: Monday, January 25, 2010, 16:11