Paes-Damm pair enters quarters, Sania-Liezel crashes out of US Open

New York, Sep 5 (UNI) Leander Paes and Martin Damm entered the quarterfinal of the men's doubles event with a facile 6-4, 6-2 win over Graydon Oliver and Jarkko Nieminen but it was all over for Sania Mirza and Liezel Huber as they went down fighting to sixth seeds Kveta Peschke and Francesca Schiavone in the third round of the women's doubles competition at the US Open here.

Paes and Damm will now take on the winners of another third round match between top seeded US pair of Bob and Mike Bryan and the Czech-Russian duo of Leos Friedl and Mikhail Youzhny.

The sixth seeded Indo-Czech pair hardly broke a sweat against their unheralded rivals as they outplayed them in straight sets to keep the Indian challenge alive in the last Grandslam of the year.

In the women's doubles, it was heartbreak for 11th seeds Sania and Liezel who squandered a set's advantage against their sixth seeded opponents to crash out of the event with a 6-3, 3-6, 5-7 loss.

The loss ended Sania's campaign in the tournament after having already bowed out of the singles and mixed doubles competitions.

Paes and Damm, meanwhile, were in sublime form against the US-Finnish pair and were hardly tested in the match. After winning the first set with ease, the sixth seeds had little trouble in running away with the second to win the match and move into the next round, where they might be faced with the tough challenge of taking on the top seeds.

However, things went horribly wrong for Sania and Liezel after the duo clinched the opening set with ease against their Czech-Italian opponents. The sixth seeds came back strongly to claim the second before fighting off Indo-South African pair's stiff challenge in the decider to seal the match in their favour.

In the junior competitions, 15th seeded Jeevan Neduncheziyan managed to win just one game against his unheralded Czech rival Michal Konecny as he made a shocking first round exit from the boys' singles event with a 1-6, 0-6 loss.

However, Rupesh Roy, who has crashed out of the singles' event, teamed up with Venezuelan Roberto Maytin to enter the second round of the boys' doubles event with a facile 6-2, 6-2 win over the US pair of Chase Buchanan and Marcus Fugate.

Rupesh and Roberto will now take on the winners of the match between the Japanese-Russian pair of Tatsuma Ito and Vladimir Zinyakov and the sixth seeded US duo of Dennis Lajola and Donald Young.

UNI XC PM PR BS1049