Rohan Bopanna and his Pakistani partner Aisam-ul-haq Qureshi eked out a hard earned win over Michael Mertinak of Slovakia and Dick Norman of Belgium to book a place in the quarter-finals of the Sony Ericsson Open.
The seventh-seed Indo-Pak pair defeated their unseeded rivals 7-6(4), 3-6, 10-8 in the second round of the hard court event.
They will lock horn with giant-killers Oliver Marach of Austria and Serbia's Janko Tipsarevic, who shocked top seeds and local favourites Bob and Mike Bryan 7-5, 6-4 in their pre-quarterfinal round.
The Indian pair of Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi, seeded third, is up against Spanish pair of Marc Lopez and David Marrero in their second round.
Somdev Devvarman had lost to David Ferrer to bow out of the men's singles event earlier.
Sania Mirza had lost to Maria Kirilenko in the women's singles event, being played simultaneously.
