Lee enters quarters; Hesh makes an exit

Melbourne, 24 Jan (UNI) Third seeds Leander Paes and Samantha Stosur stormed into the quarterfinals of the Australian Open mixed doubles event with a straight set win over Chris Haggard and Eleni Daniilidou here today.

Paes and Stosur beat the Greco-South African pair 6-3, 6-4 in just 57 minutes to set up a clash against Daniel Nestor of Canada and Elena Likhovtseva of Russia.

The Indo-Australian pair held serve throughout the match and broke the rivals once in either sets to enter the round of eight.

Meanwhile, Melbourne sojourn ended for Paes' estranged partner Mahesh Bhupathi who, along with his Czech comrade-in-arms Radek Stepanek, surrendered 3-6, 2-6 to second seeds Jonas Bjorkman and Max Mirnyi in the men's doubles quarterfinal.

Bhupathi-Stepanek pair committed more double faults and failed to convert the break points regularly to hand the Swedish-Belarussian pair an easy win in only 62 minutes.

Bhupathi and his Slovakian partner Daniela Hantuchova had already crashed out in the first round of the mixed doubles to Serbian duo of Nenad Zimonjic and Jelena Jankovic.

UNI