It was double joy for Indian fans at the Roland Garos on Tuesday with Indian tennis ace Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi leading their respective teams to the French Open 2012 mixed doubles semifinals, thus opening up possibilities of a clash in the finals.
Leander Paes and Elena Vesnina of Russia beat Max Mirnyi of Belarus and Liezel Huber of America on Tuesday to make it through to the semifinals.
The fifth seeds took more than one and a half hours to beat the pair of Max and Huber. They won the quarter finals by a thrilling 4-6, 7-5, 10-5. Now, they will take on Klaudia Jans-Ignacik of Poland and Santiago Gonzalez of Mexico in the semifinals.
Other Indian pair of Mahesh Bhupathi and Sania Mirza had earlier beaten Kveta Peschke and Mike Bryan in the quarter finals. The seventh seed Indian pair shocked the second seeds with a 6-2, 6-3 victory at the Roland Garros on Monday.
Mahesh Bhupathi and Sania Mirza, who won the 2010 Australian Open, will now take on Galina Voskoboeva of Kazakhstan and Daniele Bracciali of Italy in the semifinals.
Interestingly, there is possibility of Indian ace Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi clash in the finals at the Roland Garos, as their respective teams have advanced to the semis finals. The Indian duo, popularly called Indian Express, will take on each other in the finals if Leander Paes and Elena Vesnina beat Klaudia Jans-Ignacik and Santiago Gonzalez, and Mahesh Bhupathi and Sania Mirza beat Galina Voskoboeva and Daniele Bracciali.
The Indian Duo has a 303-103 career record together. They were world number 1 doubles pair at one point of time, winning three grand slam titles together. They won French Open and Wimbledon Open in 1999 and were runner-up in Australian Open and US Open in the same year. They then on to win French Open in 2001 and Australian Open 2011 runner-up.
Meanwhile, Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi also share sweet-sour relationship. They decided to partner with other players due to personal differences.
