London, India's Mahesh Bhupathi and Rohan Bopanna, whose insistence to play together sparked off a selection storm in the build-up to the Olympics, staved off a spirited challenge from their Belarus opponents to script a gruelling three-set victory and move into the second round of the men's doubles event here today.
Bhupathi and Bopanna held their nerves to edge out Max Mirnyi and Alexander Bury with a hard-fought 7-6 (4), 6-7 (4), 8-6 scoreline in a tussle which lasted two hours and 26 minutes at the Wimbledon here. Both the teams went neck-and-neck till the very end before the Indian pair pulled off a thrilling win to keep their medal hopes alive in the event.
In the tense tie-breaker in the third set, Bopanna and Bhupathi put their rivals under pressure with an attacking brand of tennis. The Indian pair will now take on R Gasquet and J Benneteau of France in the second round. In the men's singles, India's Vishnu Vardhan, who was given a wild card at the 11th hour, went down tamely to another wild card Blaz kavcic of Slovakia to end his challenge.
Vishnu, ranked 208 in the world, made a valiant effort to counter Kavcic but in vain as his rival pulled off a convincing 6-3, 6-2 win in a contest which lasted one hour and 12 minutes.
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