Paes-Dlouhy, Bopanna-Qureshi advance in Wimbledon

London:

Leander Paes and his Czech partner Lukas Dlouhy had to dig deep into their reserves to countervail a spirited challenge from local favourites James Auckland and Jamie Delgado and advance to the men's doubles second round in the Wimbledon championships in London.

The ninth seeded Indo-Czech pair rallied to clinch a hard fought 4-6 6-0 6-3 4-6 6-3 win in a gruelling first-round contest, which lasted almost three hours, on Tuesday.

Paes and Dlouhy will take on another unseeded pair of American Eric Butorac and Australian Ashley Fisher in the second round.

Meanwhile, Rohan Bopanna and his Pakistani partner Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi stunned the 10th seeded Polish pair of Mariusz Fyrstenbeg and Marcin Matkowski in straight sets to book a second round berth.

The Indo-Pak express beat their opponents 6-3 7-5 6-4 in their opening match in one hour and 58 minutes.

Bopanna and Qureshi have a relatively easier battle at hand next as they take on the winners of the contest between unseeded pairings of Thais Sonchai Ratiwatana and Sonchat Ratiwatana and Spaniards Marcell Granollers-Pujol and Santiago Ventura.