Paes-Bhupathi in semis

French Open champions Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi stormed into the semi-finals of the $1Million Davidoff Swiss Indoors ATP tournament, being played in Basel, Switzerland, on Friday.

The duo, seeded third in the tournament, won a tough comeback match against Julien Boutter and Arnaud Clement of France 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 in their quarter-final match.

In the semi-finals on Saturday, they will face the wild card entrant pair of George Bastl and Ivo Heuberger of Switzerland. Bastl and Heuberger upset the second seeded Czech pair of Petr Pala and Pavel Vizner in the first round and then the Spainish pair of Alex Corretja and Carlos Moya in the quarter-finals.

Earlier, in the first round match on Thursday, the Indian duo got better of the Czech pair of Tomas Cibulec and Leos Friedl 6-4, 6-2 to move into the quarter-finals.

In the other semi-final, top seeded Daniel Nestor and Nenad Zimonjic will face Ellis Ferreira of South Africa and Rick Leach of the United States.

Last week, the Indians lost in the quarter-finals of the Stuttgart Masters series to Ellis Ferreira and Jeff Tarango 7-5, 6-7(4), 3-6.