Paes-Dlouhy move to quarters of Rome Masters

Third seeds Leander Paes and Lukas Dlouhy moved to the quarter-finals of the ATP Rome Masters after getting a walk-over from Croat Ivan Ljubicic and Michael Llodra of France in the second round.

Llodra and Ljubicic opted out of the contest after the latter suffered a side strain.

Paes and Dlouhy, the winners of the Miami Masters, have not yet played a single ball in the tournament having received a bye in the first round.

They will fight it out with the seventh-seeded pair of Lukasz Kubot of Poland and Oliver Marach of Austria for a place in the semi-finals.

On Thursday, Mahesh Bhupathi and his partner Max Mirnyi lost the fiercely fought second round match to the American combo of Sam Querry and John Isner to bow out of the prestigious clay court tournament.