Paris: The Indians had a mixed day at the French Open on Saturday as Mahesh Bhupathi and Leander Paes won their respective men’s doubles matches while the mixed doubles pair of Bhupathi and Sania Mirza crashed out in the first round.

Bhupathi and Mark Knowles survived a stern test from Johan Brunstrom of Sweden and Jean Julien Rojer of the Netherlands Antilles to move into the men’s doubles pre-quarter finals. The fourth-seeded Indo-Bahamian pair toiled for nearly three hours before winning 7-6, 6-7(4-7), 7-6(7-3) in a gruelling second round match.

Paes and Lukas Dlouhy edged past the local pair of Julien Benneteau and Nicolas Mahut 7-6(7-3), 6-3 to enter the men’s doubles quarter finals. It took the third-seeded Indo-Czech pair more than an hour and a half to bury the challenge of their rivals who fought valiantly.

However, the mixed doubles pair of Bhupathi and Mirza suffered a straight set loss to the French-Israeli duo of Nathalie Dechy and Andy Ram in a first round match. The Indian duo, who won the Australian Open title in January, lost 1-6, 5-7 to Dechy and Ram. With the loss, Sania’s campaign at Rolland Garros ended as she had already crashed out from the singles and doubles competitions.

Bhupathi and Knowles had a match point in the second set but their rivals displayed tremendous resilience to push the match to tiebreaker in the third set. Eventually, Bhupathi and Knowles’ experience stood them in good stead as they held their nerve to move to the pre-quarters.

Paes and Dlouhy, with Saturday’s win, improved on their last year’s performance at the clay-court major when they had lost in the pre-quarters. (PTI)