The last minute pairing of India's Rohan Bopanna and Mustafa Ghouse upset top seeds Bjorn Phau and Alexander Peya in the doubles first round of the Kingfisher Airlines Open tennis tournament at the Cricket Club of India in Mumbai on Monday night.
Bopanna-Ghouse beat the top seeded Austrian-German pair 6-3, 6-4 to advance into the second round of the tournament.
Earlier, Mario Ancic of Croatia treated the crowd to his trademark serves and grunts to storm into the second round in Mumbai. Ancic beat Russia's Igor Kunitsyn 6-3, 6-2 in a lop-sided encounter.
Ancic won the first game on love but the going was not as easy in the following games against the tenacious Russian, ranked 121 in the world. Kunitsyn countered Ancic's serve and volley serve with some solid baseline play and kept himself in the rallies.
But with the Croat raising his game in the second set, Kunitsyn seemed to lose heart for a fight. He was broken in the first two games and went on to lose the set 6-2.
Ancic, who arrived in Mumbai for the event on Wednesday in Mumbai said he is well-prepared for the humid conditions during his first-round encounter.
Bopanna-Ghouse brought some cheer in the Indian camp after the day had started disappointingly, with Karan Rastogi being knocked out in his first round.
The big-serving Bopanna combined well with Ghouse, who dished out some amazing volleys to surprise Phau-Peya.
In the other matches, England's James Auckland and Japan's Gouichi Motomura won the battle of the qualifiers. Auckland beat Germany's Frank Moser 6-1, 6-4 while Motomura was stretched to 3-6, 6-0, 7-6 by the Netherlands' Jasper Smit.
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