Paes-Dlouhy reach semifinals of Dubai Tennis Championships

The second seeded pair of Paes and Dlouhy beat Arnaud Clement of France and Robert Lindstedt of Sweden 7-6(3), 6-1 in the quarterfinals on Thursday to set up a clash with Christopher Kas of Germany and Belgian Dick Norman.

Christopher and Dick stunned fourth seeds Frantisek Cerman of Czech Republic and Slovak Michal Mertinak 6-4, 6-2 in another quarterfinals.

However, it was end of roads for Bhupathi as he and his Belarus partner Max Mirnyi were defeated 4-6, 4-6 by Simon Aspelin of Sweden and Australian Paul Hanley in the last eight match on Wednesday.

Wildcards Rohan Bopanna of India and his Pakistani partner Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi became a first round casualty after going down 7-5, 6-7(5), 8-10 in the first round against Clement and Lindstedt on Wednesday.

Another Indian in the fray, Somdev Devvarman also lost his second round singles match against Marcos Baghdatis of Cyprus 3-6 6-3 1-6  on Wednesday.