Mahesh Bhupathi was the lone Indian surviving in the doubles event of the US$ 450,000 ATP Chennai Open along with his Bahamian partner Mark Knowles as second seed duo of Leander Paes and Lukas Dlouhy were shocked in the first round in Chennai on Thursday.
The top seeded pair of Bhupathi and Knowles advanced to the quarter-finals after a hard fought 7-6(3), 7-6(8) win over wild card entrants Somdev Devvarman and Prakash Amritraj.
However, the pair of Paes and Dlouhy, which was expected to clash with Bhupathi and Knowles in the final, were in for a shock as they packed their bags after a 6-4, 2-6, 7-10 loss against German pair of Bjorn Pjau and Rainer Schuettler.
Paes and his Czech pair frittered away a one-set lead advantage and allowed their opponents to claw their way back in the match, which was decided by super tie-breaker.
The Indo-Czech pair a made a mini-comeback after trailing 3-6 in the super tie-break but the German pair ensured they ended on the right side as they held their nerves to pocket the decider.
Earlier, Bhupathi and his Bahamian partner had to dig deep into their reserves to tame the Indian pair.
They next face winners of the match between Swiss pair of Jean-Claude Cherrer/Stanislas Wawrinka and Swiss/Romanian pair of Yves Allegro and Horia Tecau.
The pairings of Yuki Bhambri-Harsh Mankad and Rohan Bopanna-Flavio Cipola have already exited from the event after losing their first round matches.
