Paes out of doubles but enters mixed semis

Melbourne: Leander Paes had a bitter-sweet experience at the Australian Open with the Indian tennis ace sailing into the semifinals of mixed doubles but crashing out of men's doubles event on Wednesday.

The Australian Open title continued to elude the men's doubles specialist as he and his Czech partner Lukas Dlouhy, seeded third, went down 3-6 4-6 to unseeded Croat-Serb combination of Ivo Karlovic and Dusan Vemic at Melbourne Park.

The Indian derived some solace later in the day when he partnered Zimbabwean Cara Black to clear their semifinal passage in the mixed doubles event.

The top seeded pair defeated eight seeds Elena Vesnina of Russia and Israel's Andy Ram 6-4 6-3 in the quarter-finals.

They will next take on seventh seed pair of American Lisa Raymond and Wesley Moodie of South Africa.

Paes has won all other three Grand Slam titles but has never won an Australian Open men's doubles trophy.

The Indian was keen to end the drought and had even arrived here quite early to acclimatise to the conditions.

For this, he shunned the ATP event in Chennai and instead played in Brisbane tournament, which ruffled quite a few feathers back home.

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