Paes-Damm in Rome Masters quarters

They are yet to play a match but the third seeded Indo-Czech pair of Leander Paes and Martin Damm has already reached the quarterfinal of the men's doubles event at the Rome Masters tennis championship.

Paes and Damm got a bye in the first round of the Euro 2,082,500 event and were scheduled to meet the American pair of James Blake and Mardy Fish in the pre-quarterfinals.

But as Fish is down with fever, the Americans gave a walk over to clear the Indo-Czech pair's quarterfinal passage.

In the quarterfinals, Paes and Damm will lock horns with eighth seeded Romanian Andrei Pavel and his German partner Alexander Waske.

Another Indo-Czech pair, Mahesh Bhupathi and Radek Stepanek, however, did not have the same luck and crashed out of the event with a first round defeat.

Finland's Jarkko Nieminen and Swede Robin Soderling beat Bhupathi-Stepanek 6-4, 4-6, 11-9 before losing to the Pavel-Waske pair in the pre-quarterfinals.