Their impeccable on-court camaraderie betrayed no signs of a stormy past as Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi today inched closer to their first joint Olympic medal by reaching the quarterfinals of the men's doubles event here.

The seventh seeded Indians played compact tennis to defeat Marcelo Melo and Andre Sa of Brazil 6-4, 6-2 in just over an hour.

In the quarterfinals, they will take on the winners of the second round match that pits fourth seeded Swiss pair of Roger Federer and Stanislas Wawrinka against the mercurial Russian duo of Dmitry Tursunov and Mikhail Youzhny.

Paes and Bhupathi were in perfect sync and they combined well to negate the Brazilians. Breaking Sa early in the third game put them ahead and the duo subsequently did not relax their grip over the proceedings as they sealed the first set without much ado.

At a time when games tend to go with the serve, squandering break points is a luxury that a pair can hardly afford and Paes and Bhupathi put themselves right in the driver's seat by breaking Melo in the first game of the second set.