It was double delight for Indian fans at the Wimbledon today as Leander Paes moved into the pre-quarterfinals with partner Daniel Nestor and Sania Mirza also entered Round 3 in the mixed doubles event here.
Paes and Nestor had to dig deep into their reserves to prevail over Yen-Hsun Lu and Teymuraz Gabashvili in a marathon men’s doubles second-round match.
The 11th seeded Indo-Canadian pair were pushed by the Taipei-Russian combination before managing a 5-7 7-6 (3) 7-6 (4) 7-5 victory.
In the mixed doubles draw, the second seeded pair of Sania and Soares made short work of Janette Husarova and Andre Begemann 6-2, 6-4 in the second round encounter.
The Indo-Brazil combine got past the Slovak-German pair in 61 minutes to move into the last 16.
The men’s doubles match was a three-hour 15 minute affair with both pairs trading breaks only twice as high quality tennis was on display.
Paes and Nestor won 160 points, only 11 more than their worthy rivals.
Paes and Nestor saved two break chances in the second set and that proved decisive in the outcome of the match as they managed to break rivals one time in three chances.
For a place in the quarterfinals, they will now fight it out with the eighth seeded team of Alexander Peya from Austria and Bruno Soares from Brazil.