The Hindu : Sport / Tennis : Bhupathi-Moodie pair moves up

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jan 20, 2006

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Sport - Tennis

Bhupathi-Moodie pair moves up

Melbourne: The 11th-seeded pair of Mahesh Bhupathi and Wesley Moodie kicked off its Australian Open campaign with a straight-set victory over unseeded Daniele Bracciali (Italy) and Oliver Marach (Australia) to sail into the second round of the men's doubles event.

With this 7-5, 6-3 win, which came in one hour and 16 minutes, the Indo-African pair sets up a second round clash with the French pair of Arnaud Clement and Michael Llodra, which beat the German pair of Philipp Kohlschreiber and Florian Mayer 6-4, 6-3.

Bhupathi and Moodie were not in their elements in the first set and were broken once but once they struck rhythm, there was no looking back. Moodie, the impressive serve-and-volleyer, proved Bhupathi's perfect foil and they broke their opponents twice to pocket the first set in 45 minutes.

In the second set, there was hardly any leeway for the Bracciali-Marach pair which tried its best. Bhupathi and Moodie proved just too good and the seeded duo clinched the second set in just over half an hour.

And there are chances of a face-off between Bhupathi-Moodie and Paes-Damm if both the pairs clear their second round hurdle. — UNI

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