Leander Paes and his German partner Andre Begemann knocked out top seeds Lukasz Kubot and Nenad Zimonjic in straight sets to storm into the semi-finals of the ATP Winston-Salem Open, here.

The unseeded Indo-German pair upset the Poland-Serbian combo 6-4, 6-4 in their quarter-final that lasted one hour and 16 minutes.

With this win, Paes now has a chance to play his first final of the season on ATP Tour. The 43-year-old legend, who has played a number of Challenger level tournaments this season, has seen his ranking plummet to 72.

Before this, reaching the semi-finals of the Delray Beach Open with Jeremy Chardy was Paes’ best show this season. They had lost to Mike and Bob Bryan.

It was a sort of revenge win for Paes, who had lost to the Polish duo of Kubot and Marcin Matkowski in the Olympics first round.