Melbourne: Leander Paes had a productive day at the Australian Open, making it to the semi-finals of the men's doubles with Radek Stepanek and then entering the mixed doubles quarter-finals with Elena Vesnina here on Wednesday.
The unseeded Indo-Czech pair of Paes and Stepanek registered a straight-sets victory over the 10th seeded pair of Eric Butorac of USA and Brazil's Bruno Soares 6-4, 7-6 in a battle that lasted an hour and 39 minutes.
Paes and Stepanek looked more comfortable than their fancied opponents in the opening set as they held their serve with ease and managed to convert the only break point they got.
The US-Brazilian duo of Butorac and Soares though came up with a better show in the second set, putting a lot of pressure on their opponents' serve.
After both the pairs exchanged breaks, the set moved into a tie-breaker. Paes and Stepanek did well to take a 3-0 lead in the breaker and then held their nerves to win it 7-4.
They will next take on second seeds, Belarus' Max Mirnyi and Daniel Nestor of Canada for a place in the final.
Paes, then, along with Vesnina downed unseeded Su-Wei Hsieh of Chinese Taipei and Marcin Matkowski of Poland in straight sets 6-3, 7-5.
In the first set, Paes and Vesnina managed to convert four of the six break points they received to win the set comfortably.
In the second set, Hsieh and Matkowski came back strongly, but Paes and Vesnina saved as many as five break points, apart from converting three of the six that they had received, to get the better of their rivals.
They would now take on Rohan Bopanna and American Lisa Raymond in the last-eight stage.
In the junior competition, Rutuja Bhosale and her Indonesian partner Aldila Sutjiadi rallied to beat Irina Maria Bara of Romania and Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia 5-7, 6-1, 10-7 to advance into the girls' doubles semi-finals.
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