Bhupathi-Paes advance to French Open 2nd Round

Ace Indians Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi shrugged off a rusty start to register a 2-6 6-3 6-2 victory in the doubles while Sania Mirza crashed out of the women's singles competition at the French Open on Thursday.

Aiming to win their third French Open title together, the 'Indian Express' duo of Paes and Bhupathi took an hour and 36 minutes to send German pair of Tommy Haas and Philipp Petzschner packing in the first round match at Roland Garros. The third-seeded Indians were completely off-colour in the first set as they could get just 33 percent of their second serve right as compared to German pair's 60 per cent.

While the experienced Indian pair committed two double faults, Haas-Petzschner did not make a single mistake, instead they managed to convert both their break points to win the set comfortably 6-2.

However, Paes and Bhupathi got their act together quickly in the second set and were able to convert one of their four break points to prevail over the Germans 6-3.

In the decider, the Indian pair, who were champions in 1999 and 2001, put up a clinical performance to outsmart Haas and Petzschner and run away with the set and the match. In the next round, Paes and Bhupathi will meet Australian duo of Ashley Fisher and Stephen Huss.

In the mixed doubles, Paes and Bhupathi advanced to the second round with their respective partners.

Paes and Iveta Benesova of Czech Republic, seeded seventh, scored a first round 6-3 6-1 thrashing of the duo of Aravane Rezai of France and Grigor Dimitrov of Bulgaria. Seeded fifth, Bhupathi and Jie Zheng of China had to toiled hard in their 6-7 6-0 10-8 win over Petra Kvitova of Czech Republic and Sergiy Stakhovsky of Ukraine.