Paes, Bhupathi in last eight

Estranged partners Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi, teaming up with different players, took contrasting routes to the doubles quarter-finals of the Internazionali BNL D'Italia tennis tournament in Rome on Thursday.

Third seeds Paes and his Czech partner Lukas Dlouhy hardly broke a sweat as they swamped Ivo Karlovic and Dusan Vemic 6-1, 6-1.

In another second round match, fourth seeded Bhupathi and his Bahamian teammate Mark Knowles survived some torrid moments before beating unheralded Simon Bolelli and Andreas Seppi 7-6(5), 2-6, 10-3.

Elsewhere, in Greece, Prakash Amritraj reached the quarter-finals of the Euro 85,000 ATP Challenger after beating Russian Michail Elgin 4-6, 6-2, 6-3.

Amritraj now faces top seed Dudi Sela in the quarter-finals.