Bhupathi-Knowles enter second round of Sap Open

San Jose, Feb 20 (UNI) Indian tennis star Mahesh Bhupathi and his partner Mark Knowles cruised into the second round of the 436,000 dollar SAP Open here, with a straight sets victory over Jaroslav Levinsky and Radek Stepanek last night.

The second seeded Indo-Bahamas pair downed their Czech opponents 6-2 6-3 in the first round encounter.

They next face the American pair of Scott Lipsky and David Martin who beat Igor Kunitsyn of Russia and Jim Thomas of the US 4-6 6-3 12-10 in their opening match.

The Indo-Pak duo of Rohan Bopanna and Aisam-ul-Haq-Qureshi will open their campaign against Belarusian Max Mirnyi and Great Britain's Jamie Murray.

Meanwhile, India's Sunitha Rao went down 1-6, 2-6 to seventh seed Edina Gallovits to bow out of the 185,000 dollar Copa Colsanitas WTA tour event in Bogota, Colombia.

UNI XC AB RN1659