Uppal-Ghouse score
refreshing victory

A day after the country's leading doubles pair of Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi announced their brief reunion with an emphatic victory, Vishal Uppal and Mustafa Ghouse followed their illustrated seniors into the quarter-finals of the men's doubles tennis competition at the Asian Games on Tuesday.

Uppal and Ghouse, India's second doubles pair, registered a creditable 6-1, 6-4 victory over Cheng Wei Jen and Chen Ti of Chinese Taipei in the second round this morning.

But India's hopes in the singles events suffered a series of setbacks with three of the four players in contention bowing out -- all to Japanese opponents.

Sunil Kumar Sipaeya went down to Goichi Motomura 2-6, 6-7(1/7) in a men's third round match, while Sania Mirza lost 4-6, 2-6 to Saori Obata in the women's section.

Senior women's player Nirupama Vaidyanathan, who returned to competitive tennis after a brief hiatus following her marriage, lost 1-6, 0-6 to Shinobu Asagoe.

The Indian pair of Ankita Bhambri and Rushmi Chakravarti also bowed out of the competition with 0-6, 3-6 defeat against Hsieh Su Wei and Chan Chin Wei of Chinese Taipei in the second round of the women's doubles section.

But Leander Paes and Sania Mirza kept the Indian spirits high by defeating Japan's Thomas Shimada and Shinobu Asagoe, the top seeds, 6-3, 6-3 in the second round of the mixed doubles.

Paes and Sania will face Thailand's Tamarine Tanasugarn and Vittaya Samrei in the quarter-finals tomorrow.