Fifth seeds Mahesh Bhupathi and Todd Woodbridge of Australia crashed out of the Pacific Life Open tennis tournament at Indiana Wells, USA but Leander Paes kept the Indian hopes alive as he and his partner, Nenad Zimonjic of SCG, made it to the second round of the doubles event.

The Indo-Australian pair of Bhupathi and Woodbrige began on a promising note as they easily pocketed the first set but Yves Allegro of Switzerland and Michael Kohlmann of Germany came back strongly to win the tie 1-6, 6-3, 7-6 (7/4), according to information received.

Later sixth seeded pair of Paes and Zimonjic were also streched to three sets but they prevailed over Julian Knowle of Austria and Petr Pala of Czech Republic 6-2, 2-6, 6-4.

They will now meet the winner of the match between Nikolay Davydenko of Russia/ Dominik Hrbaty of Slovakia and the Belgium pair of Xavier Malisse/Olivier Rochus.