Paes-Damm in semi-finals

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Last updated on: July 06, 2006 01:45 IST

Seventh seeds Leander Paes and Martin Damm of the Czech Republic won a marathon five-setter to advance into the men's doubles semi-finals at Wimbledon on Wednesday.

In a rain-interrupted quarter-final, the Indo-Czech pair beat fourth seeds Paul Hanley of Australia and Kevin Ullyet of Zimbabwe 7-6 (8), 6-7 (5), 6-7 (5), 7-6 (7), 6-2 in four hours and 20 minutes.

Paes-Damm take on the winner of the match between Fabrice Santoro-Nenad Zimonjic and Jonas Bjorkman-Max Mirnyi.

In another doubles match, Mark Knowles of Bahrain and Daniel Nestor of Canada, seeded third, were stretched into the longest doubles Grand Slam match by Simon Aspelin and Todd Perry.

The fifth set alone lasted more than three hours, as Knowles-Nestor overcame their opponents and fatigue to win 5-7, 6-3, 6-7 (5), 6-3, 23-21.

The match was suspended due of darkness Tuesday with the fifth set 11-11.

The previous longest doubles match at a Grand Slam was 5 hours, 29 minutes, at the 1990 Australian Open, when Pieter Aldrich and Danie Visser of South Africa beat Scott Davis and Robert Van't Hof of the United States in five sets, 23-21 in the deciding set.

In the boys' singles, India's Sanam Singh, seeded eighth, went down to 12th seed Artur Chernov of Russia 6-2, 6-3 in the third round.

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