India's doubles aces Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi registered contrasting victories to enter the quarter-finals in the $2.4 million Hamburg Masters, in Germany, on Thursday.
Fifth seed Paes, partnering David Rikl of the Czech Republic, waltzed past Joshua Eagle of Australia and Jared Palmer of the United States, winning 6-3, 6-3, while second seeds Mahesh Bhupathi and Max Mirnyi of Belarus struggled a bit before defeating Tomas Cibulec and Pavel Vizner of the Czech Republic 6-4, 3-6, 7-6(2) in the second round.
Paes/Rikl earned two service breaks in the first set and could have finished it faster. But the duo missed four break-points at 4-1 in the second set and then a match-point at 5-2 as well.
Bhupathi/Mirnyi dropped serve early in the first two sets, but came back in the first to take it at 6-4.
They faced some serious resistance late in the third set and were down 0-30 at 5-6 on serve. In the tie-breaker, however, the Indo-Belarussian pair just blew the Czechs away to take the match.
Paes and Rikl face fourth seeds Jonas Bjorkman of Sweeden and Todd Woodbridge of Australia, while Bhupathi and Miryni meet the wild card German pair of David Prinosil and Alexander Waske in the quarter-finals.
In the other quarter-finals, top seed Mark Knowles of the Bahamas and Daniel Nestor of Canada will face the alternate pair of Wayne Arthurs and Paul Hanley of Australia, while third seeds Bob Bryan and Mike Bryan of the US meet seventh seeds Martin Damm and Cyril Suk of the Czech Republic.
