Leander Paes and his Czech partner Radek Stepanek cleared the first hurdle and moved into the second round of the men's doubles competition in the USD 355,000 hard-court ATP International tennis championship at Delray Beach, Florida.

Paes and Stepanek defeated the American pair of James Blake and Jeff Morrison 6-2, 6-4.

They will next face Kenneth Carlsen of Denmark and Ivo Karlovic of Croatia, who beat Jan-Michael Gambill and Vincent Spadea 6-3, 6-4 of the United States in their first round encounter.

Paes had made it to the final of the US Open doubles championship with another Czech player David Rikl last week, where they lost to Mark Knowles of Bahamas and Daniel Nestor of Canada.