
Indian ace Rohan Bopanna and Austria's Oliver Marach have entered the men’s doubles quarterfinals of the Paris Masters tennis tournament after stunning ninth seeds Fabrice Martin and Jean-Julien Rojer in a hard-fought second-round encounter.
The unseeded duo of Bopanna and Marach came from behind to beat Martin and Rojer 3-6 6-4 10-8 in the round of 16 ties Wednesday night.
The Indo-Austrian pair will now face the eighth seed pairing of Edouard Roger-Vasselin and Jurgen Melzer in the quarterfinals on Friday. Bopanna and Marach had defeated the Serbian pair of Dusan Lajovic and Nikola Cacic 7-5, 7-6 to move into the round of 16.
Earlier, Rafael Nadal became the fourth player in the Open Era to register 1000 wins on tour level after beating Australian Jordan Thompson 6-1 7-6(3) on Thursday to reach the Paris Masters quarter-finals.
Nadal is looking forward to winning his maiden Paris-Bercy title and broke Thompson's serve twice to claim the opening set convincingly.
World No. 2 was trailing 5-6 in the second, but the Spaniard came from behind to beat the Aussie and even win a 26-shot rally.
"He started to serve well in the second set. I missed a couple of returns I shouldn't have," Nadal said. "I suffered until the end but I found a way to win the tiebreak."
Nadal qualified for quarter-finals in all eight appearances at the indoor tournament and will take on fellow Spaniard Pablo Carreno Busta.