Bhupathi-Likhovtseva enter third round

Former number one Mahesh Bhupathi and his Russian partner Elena Likhovtseva progressed to the third round of the mixed doubles today, beatin...

Former number one Mahesh Bhupathi and his Russian partner Elena Likhovtseva progressed to the third round of the mixed doubles today, beating Chris Haggard (South Africa) and Zi Yan of China 6-6, 7-6 (7-5).

In the next round, the Indo-Russian pair will meet Daniel Nestor of Canada and Lina Krasnoroutskaya of Russia, who recorded a facile 6-2, 6-2 victory over Michael Hill of Austria and Tathiana Garbin of Italy in the other second round match played today.

Further good news for India came in the form of fifth seeds Karan Rastogi and Chu-Huan Yi of Chienese Taipei winning their first round match in the boys’ doubles event. They beat the Austrian pair of Martin Fischer and Phillip Oswald 6-7 (6-8), 6-1, 6-2 and progressed to the second round.

However, the all-Indian pair of Divij Sharan and Tushar Liberhan lost 3-6, 4-6 to top seeds Alex Kuznetsov of USA and Mihail Zverev of Germany in the first round of the same event. The duo failed to take charge of the match against the clearly superior opponents and capitulated without much of a fight.