New Delhi, May 13: India's Leander Paes and his new Spanish partner Tommy Robredo were pulled to limit before they overcame a stiff challenge from the Czech-Russian duo of Tomas Berdych and Dmitry Tursunov to enter the second round of the doubles event in the Hamburg Masters tennis tournament in Germany.

The unseeded duo of Paes and Robredo won a hard fought tie breaker to overpower their opponents 6-1, 5-7, 10-8 last night. The Indo-Spaniard duo will now take on third seed Israeli pair of Jonathan Erlich and Andy Ram who got a first round bye. Another Indian in the tournament, Mahesh Bhupathi and Mark Knowles of Bahamas, seeded fourth were also handed a bye in the opening round and will start their campaign against the unseeded American pair of James Blake and Mardy Fish.

UNI