St. Peterseburg:
Second seeds Rohan Bopanna and Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi progressed to the quarterfinals of the St.Petersburg Open after a hard earned win over Sergiy Stakhovsky and Mikhail Youzhny.
The 'Indo-Pak Express', aiming to make the ATP World Tour finals, beat their unseeded rivals 6-2 2-6 10-3 in the first round of the USD 663,750 hard court event.
Meanwhile, top seeds Mahesh Bhupathi and Max Mirnyi also booked a last-eight berth in the Open Sud de France with a 7-6 (3) 7-6 (3) win over Brian Battistone and Andreas Siljestrom.
They will next face Stephen Huss and Ross Hutchins in the USD 650,000 event.