Bhupathi-Stepnak through to third round at Australian Open

Melbourne, Jan 21 (UNI) Mahesh Bhupathi and his Czech partner Radek Stepnak rallied from a set down to upset ninth seeds Lucas Dlouhy and Pavel Vizner 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 (4) to enter the third round of the men's doubles event at the Australian Open here today.

Bhupathi and Stepnak have another tough battle at hand as they take on the seventh seeded Israeli pair of Jonathan Erlich and Andy Ram in the third round.

In a marathon match lasting over two and a half hour, Bhupathi and Stepnak got their act together after going a set down to oust their seeded Czech rivals.

Bhupathi and Stepnak were rusty to start with and committed four unforced errors compared to none by their opponents. The Indo-Czech pair was also broken twice by the ninth seeds and despite breaking back once, Bhupathi and Stepnak could not prevent themselves from losing the opening set.

However, the unseeded Indo-Czech pair learnt quickly from their mistakes and made a comeback in the second set. Bhupathi and Stepnak held their serve and managed to break their rivals once as they took little over half an hour to storm back into the match by winning the second set.

Their was hardly anything to choosae between the two pairs in the decider as both the teams gave it their all. The two pairs held their serve and matched each other shot for shot as the set went into a tie-breaker.

Bhupathi and Stepnak proved to be the tougher of the two pairs as they held their nerves and served well to seal the match in their favour.

Later in the evening Bhupathi will once again be in action as he teams up with Daniela Hantuchova of Slovakia to take on the Serbian pair of Nenad Zimonjic and Jelena Jankovic in first round of the mixed doubles event.

UNI