Bhupathi-Knowles advance in US Open

New York:

Ace Indian pro Mahesh Bhupathi and his Partner Mark Knwoles scored a comfortable straight sets win to advance to the second round of the US Open even as Rohan Bopanna and Pakistani teammate Aisam-ul-Haq-Qureshi bit dust to crash out of the men's doubles event.

Bhupathi and Knowles defeated Swedish pair of Johan Brunstrom and Thomas Johansson 6-3 6-4 in a little over one hour contest while Bopanna and Quershi lost 5-7 3-6 to French Pair of Marc Gicquel and Sebastien Grosjean in their opening match in one hour and 23 minutes, yesterday.

The Indo-Bahamian pair did not face even a single breakpoint in the match and broke their Swedish opponents once in the both the sets to move to the next level.

Bopanna and his Pakistani teammate dropped their serve twice and converted one of the three chances in the first set.

In the second set, they squandered two chances and let the guard down to drop their serve for the third time in the match, which capped their campaign in the last Grand Slam of the year.

Leander Paes, who stepped down as Indian Davis Cup skipper, has alreaday reached the the second round along with his Czech partner Lukas Dlouhy and face Eduardo Schwank of Argentina and Potito Starace of Italy.

Bhupathi and Knowles face Swiss Yves Allegro and Romania Horia Tecau in their second round tonight.

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