Paes-Dlouhy, Bhupathi-Knowles advances to Cincinnati quarters

Cincinnati, Jul 31 (UNI) Indian tennis stars Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi, along with their partners, easily advanced to the quarterfinals of the 2,615,000 dollar Cincinnati Masters tournament.

Paes with his Czech partner Lukas Dlouhy beat Ivo Karlovic of Croatia and Rogier Wassen of Netherlands 6-4 6-2 in the second round of the event, while Bhupathi and his Bahamian partner Mark Knowles got a walkover from Czech pair Tomas Berdych and Radek Stepanek.

Both Paes-Dlouhy and Karlovic-Wassen pairs had plenty of chances against each other and offered many a breakpoint.

Both the pairs got four breakpoints each in the first set. The Indo Czech pair converted two and saved three to take the lead.

In the second set, Karlovic-Wassen wasted three breakpoints to hand over the match to Indo-Czech pair in less than even 60 mins.

The Paes and Dlouhy combination will now face second seeded Daniel Nestor of Canada and Serbian Nenad Zimonjic in the next round, while the fourth seeded of Bhupathi and Knowles will face the winning team of the second round match between Mardy Fish/John Isner and Jonad Bjorkman/ Kevil Ullyett.

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