Bhupathi, Paes crash out of Paris Masters

Paris: Indian challenge in the ATP Paris Masters tennis tournament ended after Mahesh Bhupathi and Leander Paes, along with their respective partners, crashed out of the doubles event following unexpected second-round defeats here.

The third seeded pair of Bhupathi and Bahamian Mark Knowles lost 4-6 7-6 (6) 7-10 to the unseeded Swede-Australian combination of Simon Aspelin and Paul Hanley.

Paes and his Czech partner Lukas Dlouhy, who were seeded fourth, also went down to unseeded rivals, losing 7-6 (5) 4-6 5-10 to the Australian-American pair of Jordan Kerr and Travis Parrott in the euro 2,750,000 event.

Paes and Dlouhy were the first to take the court and had to fight hard in the opening set itself, saving five break points before prevailing in the tie-breaker.

But they were in for tougher times in the second set and lost their serve once. Bhupathi and Knowles also failed to convert the only break point they earned as Kerr and Parrott made it 1-1 before wrapping it up in the super tie-breaker.

Later, Bhupathi and Knowles fought back from a set down but the effort couldn't win them the match as Aspelin and Hanley held their nerve in the super tie-breaker to move into the quarterfinals.