Paes beaten in doubles, wins in mixed event in Australian Open

Melbourne, Jan 21 (UNI) Leander Paes had mixed luck at the Australian Open today, as he crashed out of the men's doubles competition but advanced to the next round in mixed doubles here.

Paes and his Czech partner Martin Damm, seeded fifth in the doubles, lost 5-7, 6-7 (7) in the third round to unseeded French pair of Julien Benneteau and Nicolas Mahut.

Paes returned with Samatha Stosur of Australia in the mixed event to whip Yuves Allegro of Switzerland and Elena Bovina of Russia 6-2, 6-2 in the 40-minute first round contest.

The Indo-Australian pair will now meet the winner of the match between Fernando Gonzalez (Chile)/Gisela Dulko (Argentina) and Leos Friedl (Czech Republic)/Tethiana Garbin (Italy) in the next round.

In the men's doubles, Paes and Damm failed to break their rivals even once in the match and were caught offguard by their rivals who capitalised on their mistakes.

The fifth seeds were broken in the first set and committed three unforced errors as the Frenchmen battled for close to an hour to clinch the opener.

Rattled by the first set loss, Paes and Damm tried to force their way back into the match in the second set but lost steam in the tie-breaker.

In an engrossing decider lasting over an hour, both the pairs held their serve and though Benneteau and Mahut committed several unforced errors, they managed to get the better of the Indo-Czech pair in the tie-breaker.

UNI