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Paes, Bhupathi advance in French Open qualifiers with contrasting victories

Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi advanced into the second round of the men's singles qualifiers at the French Open Tennis Championships yesterday.

Paes had the tougher match. He defeated Wolfgang Schranz of Austria 7-6(5), 2-6, 8-6, while his doubles partner Bhupathi had an easy outing, while getting the better of Oren Motevassel, 6-2, 6-1.

Paes won the first set after a tough tie-breaker at 7-6(5), but lost the second 2-6. He was in trouble again in the third set, facing a break point at 1-2 with his serve down 30-40, before rain stopped play. After over an hour's break, Paes returned and held serve. He then broke Schranz in the seventh game to go up 4-3 and was serving at 40-15 when his unforced errors crept in again. He dropped serve from that point and it was 4-4.

In the next game, Schranz held serve and went up 5-4. Paes was again in trouble, serving at 0-30 in the 10th game, but he managed to hold to make it 5-5. He had a chance to break in the next game, but Schranz fought off the threat. As there is no tie-break in the third set in French Open, the game went on and finally Paes got his break in the 13th game to go ahead 7-6. He then served out to take the set and match at 8-6.
Paes faces Olivier Delaitre of France in the second round.

Bhupathi took the court only after Paes had started the third set, and he breezed along to finish his match almost the same time as his doubles partner did, except that the rain came down when he was serving for the match, which he finished after a one-hour break.

The match lasted about 30-40 minutes, as Bhupathi kept breaking Motevassel at will. Motevassel was never in the game as the Indian kept holding serve at love and went after him on his serve!
Mahesh faces Ivan Ljubicic of Crotia in the second round.

In the women's qualifiers, India's Nirupama Vaidyanathan plays Surina DeBeer of South Africa in the first round.