India’s doubles exponents Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi recovered from a first-set loss to carve out a fighting 6-7(7), 6-4, 6-4 victory over Croatia’s Ivan Dodig and Lovro Zovko and enter the second round of the Wimbledon men’s doubles here on Friday.

The third-seeded Indian pair and the 1999 champions now play Arnaud Clement of France and Lukas Dlouhy of Czech Republic.

Later, Somdev Devvarman and Sania Mirza brought more cheers to the Indian camp by registering victories in men’s and women’s doubles.

Somdev parterning Kei Nishikori of Japan defeated the German pair of Rainer Schuettler and Alexander Waske 6-7(3), 6-3, 6-2 to enter the second round. They now face a tough test against sixth seeds Michael Llodra of France and Nenad Zimonjic of Serbia.

Sania and her Russian partner Elena Vesnina overcame a second set slump to entered the third round. The fourth-seeded Indo-Russian pair defeated Czech Renata Voracova and Galina Voskoboeva Kazakhstan 6-3, 5-7, 6-4.

The 2008 Wimbledon got underway on Monday (June 23), with most of the seeds coming through convincingly in the Royal slam. However, the big game for Indian fans will be followed on Tuesday (June 24) is Sania Mirza, as she opens her campaign against lesser ranked Columbian Catalina Castano.

Sania Mirza starts her Wimbledon 2008 campaign on Tuesday when she takes on 146th ranked Catalina Castano of Colombia.

Sania, seeded 32nd in the tournament, returns to the courts after a three-month injury lay-off.

Leading to the premier grass court tournament Sania lost out in the second round at Birmingham and the Ordina Open.

But the 21-year-old has never gone past the second round at the third Grand Slam of the year in three previous attempts and faces a possible challenge against Venus Williams in the third round.

The tournament began on Monday with Roger Federer and new women’s No. 1 Ana Ivanovic winning their first round match in straight sets.

Fourth seed Svetlana Kuznetsova and sixth seed Serena Williams also won their first round matches easily on Monday.

Sania who lost out in the second round at Birmingham and the Ordina Open should have it easy against the 146th ranked Columbian in today’s first round. But the Indian, who has never gone past the 2nd round at Wimbledon in three previous attempts, faces a possible challenge against Venus Williams in the third round.

The Hyderabadi girl, who is recovering from a wrist injury, has been seeded 32nd at the Wimbledon and handed an easy opening round match.

She takes on Colombian Catalino Castano in the first round.

In the ATP doubles charts, Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi, who reached the finals of last week’s Ordina Open coming together after four years of a bitter split, were non-movers.

While Bhupathi hung on to the 13th position with 2940 points, Paes continued to be 23rd with 2050 points.