Paes, Bhupathi advance in mixed doubles

Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi registered contrasting victories in the first round of the mixed doubles at the French Open on Thursday.

The seventh seeded Indo-Czech pair of Paes and Iveta Benesova brushed aside Frenchwoman Aravine Rezai and her Bulgarian partner Grigor DiMitrov 6-3, 6-1 in only 52 minutes.

However, Bhupathi and his Chinese partner Jie Zheng had to fight hard before getting the better of Petra Kvitova of the Czech Republic and Ukrain's Sergiy Stakhovsky 6-7 (3-7), 6-0, 10-8.

The fifth seeded pair required 79 minutes to move into the second round.

It was cakewalk for Paes and Benesova. The first set was over in only 29 minutes while it took them a mere 23 minutes to wrap the second.

The Indo-Czech duo converted five of the nine break-points they got and hit around 84 percent winners on first serve. Their successful first serve percentage was an astounding 74 percent compared to 57 percent from their opponents.

Leander's doubles partner Bhupathi had a tough time in his first round match after losing the first set via the tie-breaker 44 minutes.

However, Bhupathi and Zheng got their act together in the second set as they didn't drop a single game to win 6-0 in only 22 minutes.

The super tie-breaker saw a well-fought battle, but the more experienced Bhupathi and his Chinese partner held their nerves to wrap up the proceedings.