Indian tennis ace Mahesh Bhupathi had mixed fortunes at the French Open on Tuesday.
Partnering Max Mirnyi of Belarus, he lost his men's doubles quarter-final match to the Indo-Czech Republic pair of Leander Paes and David Rikl but won his mixed doubles match.
He and Elena Likhovtseva returned to complete their postponed second round match against Liezel Huber of South Africa and Pavel Vizner of the Czech Republic and won it, 7-6(5), 3-6, 6-3, to advance to the quarter-finals, where they will meet against Corina Morariu of the United States and Jonas Bjorkman of Sweden on Wednesday.
Immediately after advancing, Bhupathi hinted that he is open to reuniting with estranged partner Leander Paes, at least for the Athens Olympics next year.
"Both of us would like to go to the Olympics with the chance to win gold," the 28-year-old from Bangalore said.
"I wouldn't say no, but we'll see. It's better that no one puts pressure on us. We were out there to play tennis, not to try and beat up each other," he added.
Paes said the men's doubles quarter-final victory over his former partner, with who he won at Wimbledon in 1999 and at Roland Garros in 1999 and 2001, was bittersweet.
"I am glad that I came out with a win and that was the sweet part about it, but it was no fun being on the other side of the net," Paes told a television channel after the match.
"I felt bad for him because at one time he was serving for the match and the next time he was staring down the barrel when I was serving for the match," he added.
"Like I said, it was bittersweet emotion ... It was very unfortunate that one of us had to lose and that was the original reason many years ago why I asked him to partner me so that India could win ... Now we have got two Indians on the opposite side of the net which is very unfortunate."
