Dubai Tennis Championship: Leander Paes-Matthew Ebden to begin campaign in men's doubles category

Indian tennis ace Leander Paes and his Australian partner Matthew Ebden will look to kickstart their campaign at the Dubai Duty-Free Tennis Championship on a winning note when they play their round-of-16 clash of the men's doubles event later on Tuesday. 

Paes and Ebden are slated to face second-seed pair of Croatia's Ivan Dodig and Slovakia's Filip Polasek for a place in the quarter-final of the tournament.

The Indo-Australian pair is heading into the clash on the back of their disappointing defeat in the summit showdown of the men's doubles event at Bengaluru Open.

Paes and Ebden slumped to a crushing 0-6, 3-6 defeat at the hands of the Indian team of Purav Raja and Ramkumar Ramanathan in the final clash in Bengaluru that lasted just 56 minutes.

In December 2019, Paes had announced that the ongoing season will be his last as a pro tennis player.

Elsewhere, third-seeded Gael Monfils and sixth-seeded Andrey Rublev stormed into the second round of the men's singles event of the Dubai Duty-Free Championships after clinching straight-sets wins in their respective last-32 clashes. 

While Monfils swept aside Hungarian tennis player Márton Fucsovics 6-4, 7-5 , Rublev saw off Lorenzo Musetti of Italy 6-4, 6-4 in the opening round.