PTI

Paris, Jun 1: Leander Paes kept the Indian challenge alive by advancing to the men's doubles semifinals with Czech Lukas Dlouhy but it was curtains for Mahesh Bhupathi and his partner Mark Knowles of Bahamas at the French Open on Monday.

Third seeds Paes and Dlouhy thwarted a late challenge from fifth seeds Bruno Soares of Brazil and Kevin Ullyett of Zimbabwe to emerge 6-2, 7-6 (5) victorious and enter the last-four stage.

The Indo-Czech pair face either top seeds Daniel Nestor of Canada and Nenad Zimonjic of Serbia or Russians Igor Kunitsyn and Dmitry Tursunov in the semifinals.

Paes and Dlouhy dominated the opening set and broke their rivals twice before wrapping it up in just 36 minutes. However, they had to stave off a strong challenge from the fifth seeds in the second set that lasted 56 minutes.

However, Bhupathi and Knowles bowed out of the tournament with a tough three-set pre-quarterfinal loss to unseeded Jose Acasuso of Argentina and Fernando Gonzalez of Chile.

The fourth seeds toiled hard for an hour and 56 minutes before eventually losing 7-5, 4-6, 6-4.

With this loss, Bhupathi's French Open campaign came to a disappointing end as partnering Sania Mirza, he had already crashed out of the mixed doubles event, losing in the first round against French-Israeli duo of Nathalie Dechy and Andy Ram.