Paes and Bhupathi through to Wimbledon third round

Leander Paes and Radek Stepanek booked a place in the 3^rd round at Wimbledon with a straight set victory over Brit Jamie Delgado and Australian Matthew Ebden. The Indo-Czech pair won the encounter 6-4 6-4 6-3 in an hour and 45 minutes.

The fourth seeded Indo-Czech pair began the match on a good note, winning the first set with a single decisive break of serve. However, the 2^nd set was closely fought with the unseeded duo taking a lead by breaking Paes-Stepanek. But the experience of the 4^th seeds helped them to claw their way back in the set, breaking back to level the set. Finally, in a set dominated by 5 breaks of serves, Paes-Stepanek broke one time more than their opponents to win the 2^nd set 6-4.

In the 3rd set, Paes-Stepanek literally steamrolled their opponents, winning it in 26 minutes and progressing to the pre-quarterfinals. Paes-Stepanek will now face the winner of the match between 15^th seeds Lukasz Kubot – Marcin Matkowski and Marinko Matosevic – Frank Moser in the 3^rd round.

Meanwhile, Mahesh Bhupathi and Julian Knowle also moved into the pre-quarterfinals at SW19. The Indo-Austrian duo won in 4 sets 3-6 6-4 6-4 6-2 against Nicholas Monroe and Simon Stadler. Monroe-Stadler had earlier beaten the Indian pair of Purav Raja and Divij Sharan in the first round.

Bhupathi-Knowle lost the first set after being broken only once by Monroe-Stadler. However, the Indo-Austrian 8th seeded pair made a comeback to win the second set and level the match. The third set was closely fought with the two teams exchanging breaks. But Bhupathi-Knowle secured an extra break to take a two sets to one lead.

The 4^th set was one-way traffic as Bhupathi-Knowle broke Monroe-Stadler twice to book a place in the 3^rd round. Bhupathi-Knowle will now face the winner of the match between 10^th seeds Santiago Gonzalez-Scott Lipsky and Canadian pair of Jesse Levine and Vasek Pospisil in the 3^rd round.