Mahesh Bhupathi and his Czech partner Radek Stepanek sailed into the semi-finals of the Master Series with a facile 6-4, 7-5 victory over the Swiss pair of Roger Federer and Yves Allegro in Monte Carlo.
The Indo-Czech pair took little over an hour to seal the match in straight sets against the singles top seed Federer and his compatriot Allegro.
Bhupathi and Stepanek will now take on the tournament top seeds Jonas Bjorkman of Sweden and Max Mirnyi of Belarus, who beat the Polish pair of Mariusz Fyrstenberg and Marcin Matkowski 6-3, 6-4 in the other semi-final.
Bhupathi and Stepanek started well, holding on to their serve in the first set and also converted one break point out of the three they got.
In contrast, the world number one and his partner had a wayward start and committed three double faults. They were broken once by the Indo-Czech pair and failed to convert the only break point they earned, losing the set 6-4.
The next set saw Federer and Allegro making a comeback but Bhupathi and Stepanek saw off the minor resistance put up by them and built on the momentum gained in the first set, breaking their opponents twice on their way to victory.
Bhupathi and Stepanek won the second set 7-5 to ensure themselves a spot in the last four.
© 2024 Rediff.com -