Wimbledon: Sania-Bhupathi lose, Paes-Stepanek surge ahead

India's Sania Mirza and Mahesh Bhupathi made an early exit from the mixed doubles event at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships here Saturday while their compatriot Leander Paes marched into the men's doubles third round with Czech partner Radek Stepanek.

All the drama surrounding the composition of the Indian tennis team for the London Olympics seemed to have weighed down Bhupathi and Sania as they were dumped by Paul Hanley and Alla Kurdryavtseva in the second round.

The fifth seeded Indian pair hardly put up a fight against the unseeded Australian-Russian combine losing 3-6, 1-6 in 50 minutes. Bhupathi and Sania made four unforced errors and failed to get even a single break point opportunity.

In the first set, the Indian pair hit two double faults and even though they had more winners, a single break point for  Hanley and  Kurdryavtseva team was enough to wrap up the set. Sania-Bhupathi failed to recover from there on.

Later in the day, Paes, a day after confirming to compete in the Olympics, got together with Stepanek to dispatch Israel's Andy Ram and Jonathan Elrich 6-2, 6-4, 7-6  in another second round match. The fourth seeds next take on either Martin Emmrich and  Michael Kohlmann from Germany or the Croatian-Brazilian combine of  Ivan Dodig and Marcelo Melo.

Paes-Stepanek put 74 percent of their first serves and converted four of their 12 break points. Their opponents secured the lone break point opportunity they got and had the first serve percentage of 59.  

Rohan Bopanna and China's Zheng Jie play their second round mixed doubles match later in the day.