The top seeded Indian pair of Mahesh Bhupathi and Rohan Bopanna survived a scare from the British-Belgian pair of Ken Skupski and Xavier Malisse to enter the quarter-finals of the Aircel Chennai Open 2012 on Wednesday night.
Bhupathi and Bopanna, a new pairing after Leander Paes and Bhupathi decided to part ways again after their brief reunion last year, battled back after losing the first set 5-7 to win the second set 6-3 and match tie-breaker 10-5.
The Indian pair took an 8-3 lead in the ten-point match tie-breaker but allowing Malisse and Skupski to notch two points before the Britisher's forehand return went long to give the match to Bhupathi and Bopanna.
Malisse and Skupski have a doubles ranking of 26 and9 0 respectively.
Bhupathi later said his pairing with Bopanna was "not pretty but greedy".
Bopanna, for his part, said the struggle in the first set was down to "pretty much getting used to playing with each other".
"This was our first match of the season. We had a lose first game and were broken, which was not ideal."
Bhupathi said he had "put in a lot of hours in December" in the off season ahead of the Chennai Open. He and Bopanna, who have a doubles ranking of seven and 11 respectively, will meet the Swiss-German pair of Stanislas
Wawrinka and Andreas Beck in Thursday's quarter-finals.
Earlier, Leander Paes began his stint with new partner Janko Tipsarevic of Serbia on a victorious note. The third seeded pair breezed past the Canadian combine of Milos Raonic and Vasek Pospisil in a long drawn encounter to also enter the quarter-finals.
Paes-Tipsarevic won 6-3, 4-6, 10-7 in 76 minutes.
