Bhupathi, Paes have mixed fortunes at Wimbledon

Indian tennis ace Mahesh Bhupathi and Max Mirnyi of Belarus moved into the second round of the men's doubles competition at Wimbledon on Wednesday.

Seeded third in the tournament, Bhupathi and Mirnyi beat the unseeded American pair of Mardy Fish and Jeff Morrison 6-4, 6-4, 7-5 in a first round match.

The duo were untroubled by the Americans and got service breaks in the fifth games of the first two sets, and 12th game of the third to win comfortably.

They now face Tim Crichton of Australia and Mark Merklein of Bahamas.

Bhupathi's former partner Leander Paes, however, failed to advance. He and Stephen Huss of Australia went down to Byron Black of Zimbabwe and Robbie Koenig of the South Africa 4-6, 4-6, 7-5, 6-4, 5-7 in their first round match.

The Indo-Aussie pair staged a brilliant rally after losing the first two sets, but committed several unforced errors in the deciding fifth set and went down after three hours and 35 minutes.

In the mixed doubles, Paes is playing with Lisa Raymond of the United States. The pair is seeded fifth, while Bhupathi is playing with Elena Likhovtseva of Russia. They are the third seeds.

Paes-Raymond face the British pair of Karsten Braasch and Barbara Rittner while Bhupathi-Likhovtseva meet the Australian pair of Sandon Stolle and Rachel McQuillan in first round matches.