Paes-Bhupathi, Bopanna-Qureshi enter men''s doubles 2nd round

Melbourne, Jan 20 (PTI) Indian tennis duo of Leander Paesand Mahesh Bhupathi entered the second round of the men''sdoubles in Australian Open after they rallied from a setdown to beat Ivo Karlovic and Dusan Vemica 5-7 6-3 6-0, heretoday.

In another match, India''s Rohan Bopanna and Pakistan''sAisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi outplayed the Brazilian pair of FrancoFerreiro and Andre Sa 6-3 6-0 to advance to the next round.

For the "Indian Express" duo of Paes and Bhupathi, thisis their first victory together at Grand Slam after a nine-year gap.

The third-seeded pair, who teamed up together afteralmost a decade in a bid to add the only Grand Slam titlemissing in their cupboard, faced a scare in the first set ofthe opening round as they went down 5-7.

However, the Indian doubles specialists did not wastemuch time to get into the groove in the second, running awayto a 6-3 win.

The last set saw Lee-Hesh toying with the Croat-Serbianpair before they wrapped it up 6-0 to cross the first hurdleat the year''s first Grand Slam, in a contest that lasted overone and a half hours.

Paes and Bhupathi had last played in a Grand Slam inAustralian Open 2002. And in all these years till 2011 theyjust paired together to represent the country in the DavisCup, the Asian Games and the Olympics.

Paes-Bhupathi will meet the winner of the match betweenSpain''s Feliciano Lopez and Juan Monaco of Argentina and theAustralian pair of Marinko Matosevic and John Millman in thesecond round.

Meanwhile, "Indo-Pak Express", the runners-up of lastyear''s U S Open, had a very easy outing today.

The 10th-seeded pair hardly spared a chance for itsunseeded opponents to pose any threat, as they breezed awayto seal the match in their favour in just 49 minutes.

Bopanna-Qureshi will next play Frenchmen Jeremy Chardyand Arnaud Clement.