LONDON: India’s Leander Paes and Rohan Bopanna breezed into the quarters and pre-quarterfinals of the men’s and mixed doubles events with their respective partners at the Wimbledon.
The fourth seeded pair of Paes and his Czech partner Radek Stepanek teamed up to knock out Polish duo Lukasz Kubot and Marcin Matkowski 6-4, 6-2, 6-4 in the third round of the men’s doubles event at the All England Club.
Bopanna paired up with Chinese Jie Zheng to post a straight-set 7-6, (8-6), 7-5 win over Robert Farah of Columbia and Darija Jurak of Croatia in the second round of the mixed doubles event.
While Paes and Stepanek took 38, 33 and 40 minutes in the three sets to get the better of their opponents, Bopanna and Zheng needed 50 and 35 minutes to clear the hurdle.
Paes and Stepanek had 19 winners to their opponents’ 8 while the Bopanna-Zheng had 17 winners to their opponents’ 6.
Sania Mirza and her partner Horia Tecau of Romania, seeded second, is scheduled to take on German combination of Martin Emmrich and Julia Goerges in the mixed doubles second round.
Bopanna and Mahesh Bhupathi progressed to the quarterfinals of the men’s doubles event with their respective partners even as Sania crashed out of the women’s doubles competition on Monday night.
Bopanna and Edouard Roger-Vasselin of France stunned the third seeded pair of Alexander Peya and Bruno Soares, while Bhupathi and Austrian Julian Knowle defeated Canadian combination of Jesse Levine and Vasek Pospisil.