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Lee-Hesh storm into semis
The Rediff Team |
August 19, 2004 00:40 IST
Last Updated: August 19, 2004 02:12 IST
India's Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi stormed into the semi-finals in the men's doubles tennis tournament at the Olympic Games in Athens on Wednesday.
The fifth seeds beat the fourth seeded Zimbabwe pair of Wayne Black and Kevin Ullyet 6-4, 6-4 in the quarter-finals.
A break in the seventh game of the first set and third of the second sufficed for the 'Indian Express' to eke out a surprisingly easy victory in an hour and 29 minutes.
They will meet Nicolas Kiefer and Rainer Schuettler of Germany, who beat eighth seeds Jonathan Erlich and Andi Ram of Israel 2-6, 6-2, 6-2 in another quarter-final.
That match lasted 1 hour 38 minutes, the final set lasting just 30 minutes, with the Israelis caving in once the Germans broke them in the third game. The Germans broke once more in the seventh game and then served out the match to enter the semis.
In another quarter-final, Mario Ancic and Ivan Ljubicic of Croatia shocked third seeds Michael Llodra and Fabrice Santoro of France 4-6, 6-3, 9-7 after a marathon battle that lasted two hours and seven minutes.
They will meet unheralded Fernando Gonzalez and Nicolas Massu of Chile, who shocked top seeds Bob and Mike Bryan of the United States 7-5, 6-4.
The match lasted just one hour 23 minutes, with the top seeds being rolled over in 38 minutes in the final set, in which they failed to get even a single break point compared to the five the Chileans got.
In the first set the Bryans broke the Chileans once, but the Chileans got two breaks of their own to take the set.