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Leander Paes and his Spanish partner Tommy Robredo scored a straight set victory over Ivan Ljubicic and R Soderling to storm into the doubles semi-finals of the Euro 2,270,000 Hamburg ATP Masters Series on Friday.
The unseeded Indo-Spanish pair won 6-2, 7-6 (3) after an hour and 12 minutes to set up a semi-final clash with the second seeded duo of Canadian D Nestor and Nenad Zimonjic of Serbia, who downed fifth seeded combine of S Aspelin (Sweden) and James Knowles (Austria) 6-2 5-7, 10-8.
Leander and Robredo began with a flourish and, with better serve and smashing returns, took the first set 6-2 in no time before allowing their Croat-Swedish opponents to make a match in the second set.
Ljubicic and Soderling sent down five aces to their opponents' none in the second set and hung on tenaciously by saving five break points on their serves only to wither away in the tie-breaker.
Mahesh Bhupathi and his partner Mark Knowles of Bahamas had crashed out of the tournament in the pre-quarter-finals