Paris, November 12: 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.
–PTI