London, Jun 27: While India's Leander Paes and Sania Mirza stamped their authority in their respective doubles' matches, the doors were closed for Mahesh Bhupathi who failed to make it to the second round of the Wimbledon Championships here.

Paes, along with Czech partner Lukas Dlouhy, moved into the third round with a 6-3 7-6 (3) 6-3 win over America's Eric Butorac who partnered Ashley Fisher of Australia last night. Seeded ninth in the tournament, the Paes-Dlouhy duo will now wait for the result of the match between American-Slovak pair of Travis Parrott and Filip Polasek and South African-Polish duo of Rik de Voest and Lukasz Kubot whom they will take on in the third round.

Meanwhile, Sania, after her lacklusture performance in the singles' event, partnered Bethanie Mattekmade of America and dominated the locals Elena Batacha and Naomi Cavady to beat them 6-4, 6-2 in the first round yesterday.

However, fourth seed Bhupathi and Knowles were shown the doors by the pair of Philipp Petzschner of Germany and Alexander Peya of Austria with a 5-7 2-6 6-7 (4) loss in their opening match.

But Bhupathi still has an opportunity to prove his mettle as he is paired with Sania for the mixed doubles and got a bye in the first round. The Indian duo has been seeded 11th in the tournament.

Paes and his Australian partner Rennae Stubbs advanced to the mixed doubles' second round with a first round bye. They have been seeded 10th in the competition.

Another Indian in the fray Rohan Bopanna, who has also bowed out of the doubles' event, also got a first round bye in the mixed doubles with his Belarusian partner Tatiana Poutchek.

UNI