Defending champions Mahesh Bhupathi and Max Mirnyi moved into the second round of the US Open doubles competition.

The top seeded Indo-Belarussian pair defeated Slovakian Dominik Hrbaty and Andre Sa of Brazil 6-3, 7-6 (7/3) in the first round on Wednesday.

Bhupathi will play mixed doubles alongside Paola Suarez of Argentina. The duo are top seeded and face Petra Mandula of Hungary and Graydon Oliver of the US in the first round.

Meanwhile, in the Grade 1 junior tennis event in Quebec, Canada, Divij Sharan and Sania Mirza advanced to the boys and girls' doubles semifinals with their respective partners while Karan Rastogi lost in the singles quarterfinals.

Rastogi went down 5-7, 2-6 to American Alex Kuznetsov in the third round yesterday.

Divij Sharan and G D Jones of New Zealand advanced to the semifinals with a hard fought 7-5, 6-7 (4/7), 7-5 victory against fourth seeds Jesse Huta Galung and Romano Tatuhey of the Netherlands.

Sania Mirza and Russian Anna Tchakvetadze had it easy against home pair Anna Blagodarova and Ekaterina Shulaeva, winning 6-1, 6-2.

The Canadian Open event is a prelude to US Open junior championships which begin on September 1.