PARIS: Pakistan’s Aisam-ul-Haq along with his Zimbabwean partner Cara Black moved into the quarter-finals of the mixed doubles event at the French Open on Sunday.
Aisam and Black cruised to a 6-4, 6-0 win over Taiwan’s Su-Wei Hsieh and Frederik Nielsen to book a last-eight clash against the duo of Russia’s Nadia Petrova and Juan Sebastian Cabal of Colombia.
Petrova and Cabal were 6-3, 6-2 winners over Australia’s Anastasia Rodionova and Santiago Gonzalez of Mexico.
It wasn’t a good day, however, for Aisam’s men’s doubles partner Jean-Julien Rojer who was knocked out in the second round along with his Slovakian partner Daniela Hantuchova.
They lost 7-6 (7-5), 6-2 to Czech duo Lucie Hradecka and Frantisek Cermak who will now face South African Natalie Grandin and Slovakian Filip Polasek in the quarter-finals. Grandin and Polasek defeated the pair of Romanian Horia Tecau and German Anna-Lena Groenefeld 1-6, 6-0, 10-7.
Also into the quarter-finals are the duo of Kristina Mladenovic of France and Canadian Daniel Nestor; 6-3, 7-5 winners over China’s Shuai Zhang and Austrian Julian Knowle.
Lisa Raymond of the US and her Brazililian partner Bruno Soares are also through after a 6-2, 4-6, 14-12 win against the Czech duo of Andrea Hlavackova and Lukas Dlouhy.—Agencies