Melbourne: It was a fruitful day for veteran Indian star Leander Paes, who sailed into the quarter-finals of the men's doubles with Czech partner Radek Stepanek, besides making the second round of the mixed doubles with Slovakia's Daniela Hantuchova at the Australian Open, here on Sunday.
Fifth seeds Paes and Stepanek hit 25 winners en route their 6-3, 6-2 win over unseeded pair of India's Yuki Bhambri and New Zealand's Michael Venus in the pre-quarter-final, which lasted 65 minutes. In his mixed doubles first round match, Paes, partnering Hantuchova, got the better of Ajla Tomljanovic of Croatia and Australia's James Duckworth 7-5 4-6 10-7 in an hour and 26 minutes to set up a second round clash against Mahesh Bhupathi and Elena Vesnina.
Eighth seeded duo of Bhupathi and Vesnina of Russia crossed the first-round hurdle in their mixed doubles match with a 6-7(3) 6-4 10-5 win over Spanish pair of Arantxa Parra-Santonj and David Marrero in a 92-minute contest. However, seventh seeded India's Rohan Bopanna and his Pakistani partner Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi endured a shocking defeat against the 12th seeded duo of Treat Huey and Dominic Inglot to crash out of the men's doubles event.
In the men's doubles pre-quarter-final, Paes ended the dream run of young compatriot Bhambri in just 65 minutes. Paes and Stepanek broke the serve of their opponents three times and served notice of their intent as they look to win the Australian Open title for the second time, following their victory in 2012 over Bryan brothers.
The Indo-Czech duo will next take on 13th seeded French combo of Michael Llodra and Nicolas Mahut in the quarter-finals. They had added a second Grand Slam championship to their collection at last year's US Open with victory over Alexander Peya and Bruno Soares.
Meanwhile, the Filipino-British pair of Huey and Inglot scored an upset 6-4 7-6(1) win over last week's Sydney finalists Bopanna and Qureshi in the top half of the draw. Huey-Inglot sent down 10 aces and hit 35 winners to set up a potential quarter-final duel with top seeds Bob Bryan and Mike Bryan.
In the junior girls' singles event, India's Dhruthi Tatachar Venugopal lost 3-6 3-6 to Germany's Katie Boulter. But Dhruthi along with her Indian partner Snehadevi Reddy posted a hard-fought 6-2 6-7(4) 10-5 win over Japanese pair of Nozomi Ohya and Yukina Saigo in the junior girls' doubles first round.
In the junior boys' doubles first round, the eighth seeded pair of India's Sumit Ngal and Korea's Hyeon Chung went down to the Spanish duo of Martinez Portero and Munar Clar 3-6 6-7.
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