Mahesh Bhupathi and Mark Knowles scored a comfortable victory to advance to the second round of the US Open even as Rohan Bopanna and Pakistani teammate Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi bit dust in the men's doubles on Thursday evening.
Bhupathi and Knowles defeated the Swedish pair of Johan Brunstrom and Thomas Johansson 6-3, 6-4 in a little over an hour while Bopanna and Quershi lost 5-7, 3-6 to the French Pair of Marc Gicquel and Sebastien Grosjean in their opening match, in an hour and 23 minutes.
The Indo-Bahamian pair did not face even a single break-point in the match and broke their Swedish opponents once in each set to move to the next level.
Bopanna and his Pakistani partner dropped serve twice and could convert one of three chances that came their way in the first set.
In the second set, they squandered two chances and dropped serve for the third time in the match.
Leander Paes, who stepped down as India's Davis Cup skipper, had already entered the second round along with his Czech partner Lukas Dlouhy. They meet Eduardo Schwank of Argentina and Potito Starace of Italy.
Bhupathi and Knowles face Switzerland's Yves Allegro and Romania's Horia Tecau in the second round on Friday night.
