Aisam, Nenad in Australian Open 2nd round

KARACHI: Pakistan’s Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi and his Serbian partner Nenad Zimonjic moved into the second round of men’s doubles category of Australian Open in Melbourne, Australia, on Wednesday.
Eighth seeds Aisam and Nenad, ranked 37th and 3rd, respectively, defeated the unseeded pair of Teymuraz Gabashvili of Georgia and Mikhail Kukushkin of Russia 6-7, 6-4, 6-3 in the first round of this first grand slam of the year.
Aisam and Nenad were given tough time by their opponents who won the first set but they failed to keep up their pace and lost the next two sets. In the second round, Aisam and Nenad face unseeded Pablo Carreno Busta and Guillermo Garcia-Lopez of Spain.
Aisam is playing this grand slam for the fifth time. He has never crossed the third round. His partner Nenad was finalist in 2010.
Aisam is also appearing in mixed doubles category in this event wherein he has partnered with Russian Alla Kudryavtseva, ranked 19th in women’s doubles.
They are unseeded and face the Australian pair of Daria Gavrilova and Luke Saville in the first round.