Paes-Stepanek off to winning start at World Tour Finals

Third seeds Leander Paes and Radek Stepanek began their campaign at the season-ending World Tour Finals with a straight sets victory over seventh seeds Aisam-ul-haq Qureshi and Jean-Julien Roger, in Group 'A', in London, on Wednesday.

The Indo-Czech pair beat the Pakistan-Dutch combo, runners-up at the Paris Masters last week, 6-4, 7-5.

Stepanek, making his debut at the event, saved a break-point on sudden-death deuce in the second game.

Rojer recovered from 30-40 at 3-3, before Qureshi was broken at 30 as Stepanek-Paes produced solid returns and attacked the net.

The Czech closed out the 41-minute set with his second ace.

Five points went against serve in the first six game of the second set, with Paes and Qureshi surviving sudden-death deuces in the second and fifth games.

Stepanek won four straight points from 15-40 at 3-4, giving the team the impetus they needed to break Rojer at love for a 6-5 lead.

He then closed out the set for victory.

Qureshi-Rojer were left to rue missing out on six break-point opportunities.

The Indian pair of Mahesh Bhupathi and Rohan Bopanna had lost their first Group B match to Jonathan Marray and Frederik Nielse on Tuesday.