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KARACHI Pakistan's tennis player Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi and his Indian partner Rohan Bopanna proceeded to the second round of Wimbledon 2010 on Wednesday.
They had to battle past India's Somdev Devarman and Treat Huey of the Phillipines 3-6, 7-5, 6-3, 7-6 (6) to make it past the first round.
The match overall saw both sides serving well, and breaks of serve came at a premium. The mix of Huey's left-handed play with Devarman's right meant that Qureshi and Bopanna had to adjust themselves and settle into a rhythm.
Serving at 2-3, Qureshi and Bopanna were down two break points, which were converted by Huey and Devarman. The break of serve gave them a 4-2 lead, which they maintained to claim the set 6-3. -- the set took a twist when a couple of errant shots at the net saw--
Qureshi and Bopanna settled in better in the second set, with improved rhythm and movement. Both sides held their own until the score reached 5-6, when Devarman was serving to stay in the set. The Indo-Pak struck at this point to bag the second set 7-5.
In the third set, Qureshi and Bopanna did not leave it late to break serve and Devarman and Huey were a serve down. Qureshi and his Indian partner's lead was consolidated when they held their serve to go 4-1 up and held on to win the set 6-3.
In a closely contested fourth set, Devarman and Huey came close to taking the advantage when, at 3-4, they had two break points at 15-40 and one after deuce but were unable to convert and the set eventually went into a tie-break.
At 3-3 in the fourth set, Qureshi and Bopanna took advantage by winning a point on their opponents' serve. They were unable to hold on to this for long however, as Devarman and Huey pulled the score back to 5-4. At 6-6, Qureshi and Bopanna won another mini-break to have a chance to serve out the match, which they eventually did at 8-6, and the match with a score of 3-6, 7-5, 6-3, 7-6 (6).
Qureshi and Bopanna's next match is against the winner of the match between Mardy Fish/Mark Knowles, and Phillip Marx and Igor Zelenay.
Aisam Qureshi is also due to participate in the mixed doubles event with Russian Alla Kudryavtseva, and the pair will face America's Bob Bryan and Lindsay Davenport in the first round.
