By IANS,
Melbourne : India’s Mahesh Bhupathi stormed into the doubles semi-finals while Leander Paes faced a shock exit in the mixed doubles at the Australian Open here Tuesday.
Third seeded Bhupathi and his Bahamian partner Mark Knowles beat a resilient Lopez and Verdasco 6-1, 2-6, 6-4 in nearly an hour and a half at Melbourne Park.
However, top seeds Paes and Cara Black of Zimbabawe were stunned by Swiss Patty Schnyder and South Africa’s Wesley Moodie in the mixed doubles pre-quarterfinals, losing 1-6, 5-7.
Bhupathi and Knowles broke the Spaniards twice to take the first set in 26 minutes but Lopez and Verdasco fought back to draw level in the second set.
The decider saw the third seeds ward off a stiff challenge from their opponents to move to the last four where they meet Poland’s Lukasz Kubot and Austrian Oliver Marach, who shocked Polish pair Mariusz Fyrstenberg and Marcin Matkowski 6-2, 6-2.
In the juniors, top seed Yuki Bhambri marched into the third round with a 7-6(1), 6-0 win over Australian Stephen Hoh. The Indian will next meet 13th seeded Croat Dino Marcan, who defeated Australian Luke Saville 6-3, 3-6, 6-2.
However, it was end of the road for another Indian Kaza Vinayak Sharma in the singles who was handed a 1-6, 1-6 mauling by Justin Eleveld of the Netherlands.
Yuki also advanced to the doubles third round with partner Liang-Chi Huang of Chinese Taipei, beating Italian Marco Bortolotti and Vladzimir Kruk of Belarus 6-3, 6-4.
The top seeded Yuki and Huang will next play French fifth seeds Julian Obry and Adrien Puget.
But the Indian girls’ campaign in the tournament ended with Kyra Shroff and her Canadian partner Eugenie Bouchard losing 4-6, 1-6 to sixth seeded pair of American Christina McHale and Croatian Ajla Tomljanovic.