Madrid Masters: Bhupathi-Bopanna in quarters, Paes out

Madrid - India’s Mahesh Bhupathi and Rohan Bopanna advanced to the quarter-finals of the Madrid Open, with a hard fought three-set victory, while Leander Paes and his Austrian partner Jurgen Melzer lost their match and bowed out in the pre-quarters.

Sixth seeds Bhupathi and Bopanna defeated the Argentine pair of Juan Monaco and Horacio Zeballos 6-3, 3-6, 10-5 yesterday, to set up a quarter-final clash with Jeremy Chardy of France and Lukasz Kubot of Poland.

Paes and Melzer didn’t have such a good time and were easily ousted by German-Czech pairing of Tommy Haas and Radek Stepanek 5-7, 1-6.

The other Indian in the fray, Sania Mirza, was also ousted along with her partner Bethanie Mattek-Sands in the second round, losing to unseeded Russian-Czech Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and Lucie Safarova Wednesday.