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KARACHI: Pakistan’s Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi on Saturday boosted his Olympic hopes by reaching the quarter-finals of the men’s doubles event at the French Open tennis tournament along with his partner Rojer Jean-Julien in Paris.

Aisam, who is hoping against hope to qualify for this summer’s Olympic Games in London, played the lead role in the duo’s impressive 6-1, 6-4 triumph over the duo of Treat Conrad Huey of Philipines and Dominic Inglot of Great Britain, ranked 45th and 125th in individual doubles rankings respectively, in the pre-quarter-finals of the Grand Slam tournament.

This is Aisam’s last chance to earn enough points to get a berth at the London Olympics set to begin on July 27.

Aisam needs a good result in Paris to have any hopes of making the cut for London 2012. He has to somehow regain a place in the top-10 world doubles rankings to qualify for the Olympics along with compatriot Aqeel Khan. Pakistan have never featured in an Olympic tennis event.

Aisam, ranked 16th, is trying hard to win enough points before June 11 so that he can make his individual doubles ranking better in order to be considered for an Olympic berth by the International Olympic Committee.

In the quarter-finals, the duo is to face either the Colombian pair of Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah, ranked 21st and 69th, respectively, or the pair of Michael Llorda of France and Nenad Zimonjic of Serbia, who are ranked 5th and 6th, respectively.

Source: http://www.thenews.com.pk/