Melbourne: India’s Mahesh Bhupathi and Rohan Bopanna crashed out of the Australian Open men’s double while Leander Paes and his Czech partner Radek Stepanek cruised into the quarterfinals here Sunday.
Bhupathi and Bopanna, seeded fourth, went down in straight-sets to Americans Scott Lipsky and Rajeev Ram in their pre-quarterfinal match.
Going into the match, the Indian pair had dropped just one set in the entire tournament. But 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 similar number of winners like their opponents, they 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.
The unseeded Indo-Czech pair of Paes and Stepanek shocked third seeds Michael Llodra of France and Serbian Nenad Zimonjic 7-5 7-6(2) in a hard-fought third round 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. They now await winner of the other third round match between the pairs of Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi and Jean-Julien Rojer and Eric Butorac and Bruno Soares. Paes had won all the other three Grand Slam titles and Australian Open is only trophy eluding him in men’s doubles.
Aussie Open at a glance
Winners
Men: No. 2 Rafael Nadal, No. 3 Roger Federer, No. 7 Tomas Berdych, No. 11 Juan Martin del Potro.
Women: No. 1 Caroline Wozniacki, No. 3 Victoria Azarenka, No. 8 Agnieszka Radwanska, No. 11 Kim Clijsters.
Losers
Men: No. 10 Nicolas Almagro, No. 18 Feliciano Lopez.
Women: No. 5 Li Na, No. 13 Jelena Jankovic, No. 22 Julia Goerges. (Agencies)
