Melbourne: India's Mahesh Bhupathi and Rohan Bopanna crashed out of the Australian Open men's doubles while Leander Paes and his Czech partner Radek Stepanek cruised into the quarter-finals on Sunday.
Bhupathi and Bopanna, seeded fourth, went down in straight sets to Americans Scott Lipsky and Rajeev Ram in their pre-quarterfinal match.
The Indian pair had dropped just one set in the entire tournament. However, three double faults and 11 unforced errors proved to be the stumbling block against the 13th seeds as they lost 6-7(8), 2-6.
Though Bhupathi and Bopanna hit a similar number of winners to their opponents, they were very poor on service returns, managing a meagre 28 percent of their returns.
Bhupathi and Bopanna still have a chance to win silverware in the mixed doubles event. The duo reached the second round of the mixed doubles with their partners Sania Mirza and Lisa Raymond respectively.
Paes and Stepanek, who are unseeded, marched into the quarter-finals with another dominating performance. The Indo-Czech pair beat the third seeds Frenchman Michael Llodra and Serb Nenad Zimonjic 7-5, 7-6(7-2).
The Indo-Czech pair has not dropped a single set so far in the competition so far and hardly gave the third seeds a chance to settle in the match.
Paes and Stepanek converted both the break chances in the opening set, while saved three on their own serve, which proved crucial in their tight one hour, 39 minutes-match. The second set went with serve before Paes and Stepanek held their nerves to clinch the thrilling tie-breaker.
The duo smashed 33 winners on their way to the last-eight, where they will play the winner of the match between eighth-seeded Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi and Jean-Julien Rojer and 10th-seeded Eric Butorac and Bruno Soares.
Paes has won all the other three Grand Slam titles and the Australian Open is the only trophy still eluding him in men's doubles.
Meanwhile, India's challenge ended in the junior singles competitions, with the defeats of Rutuja Bhonsle, Ratnika Batra and Arjun Khade.
Bhonsle frittered away a one-set advantage to lose 6-3, 4-6, 2-6 to Croatia's Iva Mekovec in the girls' singles first round, while Batra surrendered tamely 1-6, 2-6 to American Taylor Townsend.
In the boys singles, Khade fought hard before losing 4-6, 6-7(4) to French Quentin Halys.
Comments
0 comment