New York : Defending champions Leander Paes and Radek Stepanek progressed to the men’s doubles third round of the US Open at Flushing Meadows here.
The Indo-Czech tennis pair needed only an hour and 23 minutes to move past Chinese Taipei-Czech combine of Yen-Hsun Lu and Jiri Vesely 7-6 (3), 6-3 in the second round on Court No.5.
Both the teams broke their opponents once in the first set leading to the tie-breaker which the sixth seeds won quite easily.
In the second set, Lu and Vesely broke Paes and Stepanek once but the defending champions broke the unseeded pair twice which proved to be the difference.
Lu and Vesely’s five double faults at crucial junctures of the match also did not help them as the number of aces, winners and unforced errors were more or less similar.