Paes in semis in men`s doubles, crashes out of mixed doubles

Leander Paes had a mixed outing in the French Open as he stormed into the semifinals of men`s doubles while the veteran Indian tennis ace and Cara Black crashed out of the mixed doubles event in the quarterfinals here.

Paris: Leander Paes had a mixed outing in the French Open on Tuesday as he and partner Lukas Dlouhy stormed into

the semifinals of men`s doubles while the veteran Indian tennis ace and Cara Black crashed out of the mixed doubles event in the quarterfinals here. Paes and Dlouhy remained on course of defending their doubles title with a straight-set win in the quarterfinals at Roland Garros. The third-seeded Indo-Czech pair defeated eighth seeds Mariusz Fyrstenberg and Marcin Matkowski of Poland 6-1 6-3. Paes and Dlouhy will now take on 10th seeded Austrian-Israeli pair of Julian Knowle and Andy Ram who beat Brazilian duo of Marcelo Melo and Bruno Soares 6-7(3/7), 6-2, 6-0 in another quarterfinal match. However, it was curtains for Paes and his Zimbabwean partner Black in the mixed doubles event as the seeded second duo suffered a shock defeat in super tie-breaker at the hands of unseeded Yaroslava Shvedova of Kazakhstan and Julian Knowle of Austria. Paes and Black lost 3-6, 7-6(7/2), 1-0(7/10) in a gruelling duel which lasted 107 minutes. Earlier in the day, Paes and Dlouhy blew away their rivals in the one-sided doubles quarterfinals that lasted barely an hour. The Indo-Czech pair converted all the three break points they earned to wrap up the opening set in just 23 minutes. The favourites wavered a bit in the second set, conceding five double faults but with a 100 per cent break-point conversion once again, Paes and Dlouhy sealed it in 35 minutes. PTI