Leander Paes wins 700th doubles match, enters French Open second round

Paris: Indian tennis player Rohan Bopanna, partnering Romanian Florin Mergea and India’s Leander Paes along with Canadian Daniel Nestor, advanced into the men’s doubles second round of the French Open here on Wednesday. Bopanna-Mergea, who are seeded ninth, defeated Serbian duo Filip Krajinovic and Viktor Troicki 5-7, 6-3, 6-4 in the first round at the Stade Roland Garros. [caption id=“attachment_2265940” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File picture of Leander Paes. AFP[/caption] Paes-Nestor, seeded tenth, beat Australian pair James Duckworth and Chris Guccione 6-2, 5-7, 7-5 in the first round. With this, Leander Paes recorded his 700th career doubles win. Daniel Nestor is, incidentally, his 99th partner which puts him closer to yet another remarkable milestone of partenring 100 players. In the match involving Bopanna, the first set was a close contest which was finally clinched by Krajinovic and Troicki. But Bopanna-Mergea came back strongly to win the second set 6-3 and followed it up by clinching the third set 6-4. Bopanna-Mergea will next face American combine Austin Krajicek and Donald Young in the second round, who earlier beat Maxime Teixeira and Florent Serra 6-1, 6-3. Paes-Nestor showed their dominance right from the word go, winning the first set 6-2 in a one sided affair. But the Australian pair refused to give up. In a tight game, although Paes-Nestor had the upper hand, Duckworth-Guccione held their nerves till the end to level the game by winning the second set 7-5. The third and final set was the most entertaining one as the game swung on both sides but the Indo-Canadian pair had the last laugh, winning it 7-5 to wrap up the match and cruise into the second round. Top seeded India’s Sania Mirza paired up with Swiss Martina Hingis to outplay Germany’s Julia Görges and Czech Republic’s Barbora Krejcíková 6-3, 6-0 to enter the second round. The Indo-Swiss pair were in full flow right from the start as they lost just three games and won 12 in the match, to steer themselves into the next round. IANS (with inputs from ESPN)