Bhupathi in Wimbledon quarters

NEW DELHI: Can Mahesh Bhupathi do it again? After tennis superstar Mahesh Bhupathi stormed into the quarterfinals of the men''s doubles at Wimbledon on Monday partnering Max Mirnyi of Belarus, Indian hopes of a Wimbledon triumph lie on Bhupathi''s shoulders.
Third seeded, they beat Julien Boutter of France and Sjeng Schalken of the Netherlands 6-1, 7-6 (7-3), 6-4 in the third round.
Bhupathi along with the other Indian ace Leander Paes reigned the doubles circuit for more than a year and had won quite a few Grand Slam events. However, a split between the two and an indifferent form saw them sliding in the world rankings.
This time, Bhupathi has been convincing in his march to the quarterfinals. Bhupathi, unlike Paes, has paired successfully with other players; he had paired with Japan''s Ai Sugiyama to win the mixed doubles title in the US Open.
Leander Paes, with his new partner Stephen Huss of Australia, was however unlucky to have failed to advance into the main draw. Paes will however play with Lisa Raymond against Paul Haarhuis and Miriam Oremans of the Netherlands later in the day for a second round mixed doubles match.
Bhupathi and Mirnyi''s advance into the quarterfinals was an easy outing. They broke the pair of Boutter and Schalken thrice to take the first set easily. In the second set, the games went without any breaks and the two big servers won the tiebreaker 7-6(7-3). Thereafter, Bhupathi-Mirnyi converted one of the three break chances they got to win the third set and the match.
They will play the fifth-seeded pair, Todd Woodbridge of Australia and Sweden''s Jonas Bjorkman on Tuesday. While Woodbridge, along with partner Woodforde, was the former number one doubles pair in the tennis circuit, Bjorkman too has been a formidable player.
Bhupathi is meanwhile focussing on both doubles and mixed doubles. In mixed doubles, He has partnered with Elena Likhovtseva of Russia to take on Thomas Shimada and Rika Fujiwara of Japan in the third round.