Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi
Melbourne, Jan 21: Indians doubles stars were off to a flying start at Melbourne in Australian Open tennis men’s doubles with Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi winning the first game against Ivo Karlovic of Croatia and Dusan Vemic of Serbia by 5-7, 6-3, and 6-0 in the first round on Thursday. On the other hand, mixed pair of India’s Rohan Bopanna and Pakistan’s Aisam Qureshi, won their match quite comfortably against Brazilians Franco Ferreiro and Andre Sa by 6-3, 6-0.
The 11th seeded Rohan Bopanna and Aisam Qureshi, which was the runners up of 2010 US Open, will play their next match against Frenchmen Jeremy Chardy and Arnaud Clement. The third seeded Mahesh Bhupathi and Leander Paes will have to wait for their next opponents, which will be decided from the winner between the match of Spain’s Feliciano Lopez and Argentina’s Juan Monaco and the Australian pair of Marinko Matosevic and John Millman. Paes and Bhupathi, which were the former World No 1 team, are playing together in a Grand Slam after nine long years in their bid to complete a career slam.
In the singles game Rafael Nadal and Kim Clijsters, continued their smooth ride through the Australian Open as Melbourne Park finally witnessed a smattering of upsets and sustained periods of sunshine on Thursday. Nadal won his match against world no 116 Ryan Sweeting taking 102 minutes by 6-2, 6-1 and 6-1. On the other side Clijsters defeated Spain’s Carla Suarez Navarro by 6-1 and 6-3 and reached the third round and is fighting hard to win the title.
Tags: Aisam Qureshi, Australian Open, Indian Tennis, Leander Paes, Mahesh Bhupathi, Melbourne, Rohan Bopanna, Sports, Tennis
