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Aisam Makes Winning Start With New Partner Back To Main

KARACHI: Pakistan’s tennis ace Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi has made a winning start to the year’s first grand slam tournament with his new partner — Jean-Julien Rojer of Dutch Antilles — in Melbourne.

The Aisam-Rojer partnership proved too good for the pairing of Croatia’s Ivan Ljubicic and Germany’s Cedrik Marcel Stebe as they won the Australian Open first round men’s doubles match in straight sets.

Aisam and Rojer cruised to a 6-3 win in the first set but their opponents came back strongly in the second set which went into an exhaustive tie-breaker. Aisam-Rojer finally won the set 7-6 (13-11) to enter the second round of the Australian Open. Their match lasted for about 90 minutes. Aisam received a blow last month when his long-time partner – India’s Rohan Bopanna – announced that he was breaking the partnership to pursue his Olympic dream. Bopanna has now paired up with his compatriot Mahesh Bhupati.