India’s Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi are heading towards a possible final showdown in both mixed as well as men’s doubles event of the US Open after winning their respective matches here.
Bhupathi and his American partner Liezel Huber, top seed, cruised to the semifinals of the mixed doubles following their emphatic 6-4 6-3 win over eighth seeds Bethanie Mattek of the US and Serbian Nenad Zimonjic.
However, second seeds Paes and Cara Black of Zimbabwe had to face a stiff resistance from seventh seeded Australian-Swede combination of Rennae Stubbs and Robert Lindstedt before prevailing over them 7-5 3-6 10-6 in their mixed doubles quarterfinal at Flushing Meadows.
Incidentally, both the Indian players enjoyed success in the men’s doubles events as well although they had to fight hard to earn their last eight berths along with their respective partners.
While the third-seeded duo of Bhupathi and Mark Knowles of Bahamas quelled the challenge of unseeded pair of Yen-Hsun Lu of Chinese Taipei and Israeli Dudi Sela 6-4 6-4 in the third round, Paes and his Czech partner Lukas Dlouhy, seeded fourth, beat Julian Knowles of Australia and Jurgen Melzer of Austria 7-5 6-4.
Meanwhile, India’s Sudanwa Sitaram’s campaign in the boys’ event ended in the first round after he went down fighting 3-6 6-3 5-7 against local lad Alexander Domijan.
