Paes-Bhupathi enter Australian Open quarters

Melbourne, Jan 24 (PTI) Indian tennis pair of LeanderPaes and Mahesh Bhupathi entered the quarterfinals of theAustralian Open with a fighting three-set win over Spanishcombination of Marcel Granollers and Tommy Robredo in thethird round of the men''s doubles event here today.

Paes and Bhupathi, who teamed up together after nineyears in a bid to add the only Grand Slam title -- theAustralian Open -- missing in their cupboard, had to play outof the skin to get the better of 13th seeds Granollers andRobredo 6-4 4-6 6-4 in an engrossing one hour and 52 minutesencounter.

In the quarterfinals, the third seeded Indian pair willplay the winners of the match between Indo-Pak pair of RohanBopanna and Aisam-ul Haq Qureshi and French-Serbiancombination of Micheal Lodra and Nenad Zimonjic.

Paes and Bhupathi started the match positively as theypocketed the first set in just 33 minutes.

But Granollers and Robredo made a strong comeback in thesecond to take the encounter into the decider which theIndians won after a 42 minute battle.

The highlight of Paes and Bhupathi''s game today was theircent percent break point conversion. The Indian pair made useof the two opportunities that came their way while theiropponents could only manage two out of four chances.

Paes and Bhupathi, however, will have to get their actstogether in the last eight round and avoid committing unforcederrors, which they did 18 times today as against their rival''seight.