The pumping of fists and chest butting returned as Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi beat Roger Federer and Yves Allegro in the men's doubles second round at the Olympic Games in Athens on Tuesday.
The 'Indian Express', seeded fifth, beat the Swiss pair 6-2, 7-6 (9-7) to make it to the last eight stage, where they run into the fourth-seeded Zimbabwean duo of Wayne Black and Kevin Ullyett, who got the better of Andre Sa and Flavio Saretta of Brazil 6-3, 6-4 in the their second round match.
The Indians effected breaks in the third and seventh games on Allegro's service to take the first set rather easily.
The second set was a thriller with both teams giving little away. Games went with serve and as a result the set petered out into the tie-breaker, which the Indians won 9-7.
In fact, Paes and Bhupathi, cheered by some members of the Indian contingent including Anjali Bhagwat and Suma Shirur, were forced to save two break-points in the second game on Federer's serve.
The Swiss led for the first time in the match when they went up 2-1 and maintained the lead till the 12th game.
Serving to stay in the set, Paes's serve came under pressure at 15-40 but the former world number one doubles pair held their nerve to hold serve and take the set into the tie-breaker.
In the tie-breaker, the Indians were 1-3 down but successfully attacked Allegro's serve to level at 3-3.
They forged ahead at 6-4 on Bhupathi's serve and held two match-points but Bhupathi committed his first double fault to fritter it away the advantage.
But at 8-7 Bhupathi produced a strunning service return to clinch the set and match.
For Federer, it was a bad day as he also lost in the men's singles, going down to unheralded Czech Tomas Berdych in the second round.
