Paes, Bopanna advance; Bhupathi-Mirnyi upset at French Open

Paes and Bopanna scored contrasting wins with their partners but Bhupathi made a shock exit.

Paris: Leander Paes and Rohan Bopanna scored contrasting wins with their respective partners but Mahesh

Bhupathi made a shock exit along with Max Mirnyi from the men`s doubles event of the French Open here today. Defending champions and third seeds Paes and Lukas Dlouhy of Czech Republic booked a pre-quarterfinal berth with a 6-4 3-6 6-3 win over unseeded pair of Swiss Yves Allegro and Andreas Beck of Germany. Paes and Dlouhy were trailing the deciding set 1-3 but turned around the second round match by winning five games on the trot. However, Bhupathi and Mirnyi had disappointment in store as they lost 4-6 6-7 (4) to Spanish pair of Marc Lopez and Pere Riba in the second round. It`s now eight years that Bhupathi had won a men`s doubles Grand Slam title. He last held a winner`s trophy in his hands in 2002 when he triumphed at US Open along with Mirnyi. Earlier, Bopanna and his Pakistani partner Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi scored an easy 6-2 6-3 win over Italian Fabio Fognini and American Michael Russell. It took them just 59 minutes to win the first round contest and will next meet 15th seed and local favourite Julien Benneteau and Michael Llodra. PTI