MELBOURNE: Aisam-ul-Haq kept Pakistan’s flag flying at the Australian Open here on Saturday when he and Poland’s Marcin Matkowski cruised into the third round of the men’s doubles at year’s first Grand Slam tennis championships.

Having defeated Brazil’s Marcelo Demoliner and Treat Conrad Huey of the Philippines in straight sets on Thursday, the 15th-seeded pair of Aisam and Matkowski repeated the dose with almost an identical scoreline in their second-round clash against Sweden’s Robert Lindstedt and Franko Skugor of Croatia.

The Pakistani-Polish pair levelled 6-all in the opening set but went on to win the tiebreaker 7-4 as Lindstedt and Skugor wilted under pressure. Aisam and Matkowski then wrapped up the match as they won the second set quite easily at 6-4.

Aisam and Matkowski will have little time to recuperate since they will be action on Sunday as well at 8:00am (PST) when they take on Radu Albot of Moldova and South Korea’s Hyeon Chung for a place in the next round.

Albot and Chung caused a major upset in there round two match on Friday by ousting the second-seeded duo of Finland’s Henri Kontinen and John Peers of Australia, winning 6-4, 7-6 (7-5).

Published in Dawn, January 21st, 2018