Bhupathi-Stepanek advance to second round

NEW DELHI: Mahesh Bhupathi and his partner Radek Stepanek of Czech Republic advanced to the men's double second round of the Dubai Duty Free tennis tournament.

The Indo-Czech pair thrashed Slovakia's Dominik Hrbaty and Jarkko Nieminen of Finland 6-0 6-3 in the first round of the prize money USD 1.5 million ATP event.

The pair will meet Czech Republic's Tomas Berdych and Petr Pala in the next round.

Leander Paes and Martin Damm, seeded fourth, were ousted by the Czech Republic combination of Tomas Berdych and P Pala 6-3 6-4 in their opening round match.