Bopanna-Raja enter doubles quarterfinals of Tashkent Challenger

Tashkent, Oct 14 (UNI) The Indian pair of Rohan Bopanna and Purav Raja shocked the Kazakhstan duo of Alexey Kedriouk and Yuri Schukin 6-1, 2-6, 10-8 to enter the doubles quarterfinals of the 1,25,000 dollar Tashkent Challenger here.

The combination of Bopanna and Raja, playing for the first time, won the first set rather easily. But the experienced Kazakh pair came back strongly in the second set to level the scores.

In the Super tie break, Bopanna brought out all his experience to serve well, while Raja played some excellent volleys on the net to settle the issue in the Indians' favour.

The pair will now take on top seeds Lukasz Kubot of Poland and Oliver Marach of Austria who easily defeated the German pair of Denis Gremelmayr and Bjorn Phau 6-3,6-4.

Second seeded Thai twins Sanchai and Sonchat Ratiwatana lost their sixteenth consecutive first round match. They were upset by the Israeli pair of Harel Levy and Naom Oken 4-6,7-5,11-9.

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