India's [ Images ] Mahesh Bhupathi [ Images ] and his Czech partner Radek Stepanek advanced to the semi-finals of the men's doubles at the French Open [ Images ] on Wednesday after surviving a tough battle against second seeds Jonas Bjorkman [ Images ] and Max Mirnyi [ Images ] at Roland Garros [ Images ] in Paris.

Bhupathi and Stepanek rallied strongly after losing the first set to triumph 3-6, 6-1, 7-6 (8-6) in a gruelling contest, which stretched two hours and 14 minutes.

The unseeded duo now take on sixth seeds Mark Knowles [ Images ] of the Bahamas and Daniel Nestor [ Images ] of Canada [ Images ] in the last four.

In the other semi-final, the ninth seeded Czech pairing of Lukas Dlouhy [ Images ] and Pavel Vizner will face fourth seeds Fabrice Santoro [ Images ] of France [ Images ] and Nenad Zimonjic of Serbia.

Dlouhy and Vizner stunned top seeds Bob Bryan and Mike Bryan [ Images ] of the US 5-7, 6-4, 6-4 to advance to the last four.

However, Leander Paes' [ Images ] campaign at the claycourt Grand Slam came to an end, when he bowed out the mixed doubles.

Paes, partnering Meghann Shaughnessy of the US, went down 6-4, 4-6, 7-10 to Tiantian Sun of China and Julian Knowle of Austria in the quarter-finals.

(Results)

Men's doubles quarter-finals:
Mahesh Bhupathi/Radek Stepanek (India/Czech Republic) beat (2) Jonas Bjorkman/Max Mirnyi (Sweden/Belarus) 3-6, 6-1, 7-6(6)
(9) Lukas Dlouhy/Pavel Vizner (Czech Republic) beat (1) Bob Bryan/Mike Bryan (US) 5-7, 6-4, 6-4.
(4) Fabrice Santoro/Nenad Zimonjic (France/Serbia) beat Igor Kunitsyn/Dmitry Tursunov [ Images ] (Russia [ Images ]) 6-4, 7-5
(6) Mark Knowles/Daniel Nestor (Bahamas/Canada) beat Michael Kohlmann/Rainer Schuettler [ Images ] (Germany [ Images ]) 6-4, 6-4

Mixed doubles quarter-finals:
(8) Nathalie Dechy [ Images ]/Andy Ram [ Images ] (France/Israel) beat (2) Liezel Huber/Kevin Ullyett (South Africa [ Images ]/Zimbabwe) 7-6(5), 6-2
Sun Tiantian/Julian Knowle (China/Austria) beat Meghann Shaughnessy/Leander Paes (US/India) 4-6, 6-4, 10-7