India play Indonesia in semis

Bhupathi quickly put behind a shaky beginning against Vadim Kutsenko for a 6-3, 6-4 win. Two early break points were brushed aside with huge serves and the domination was complete. Despite dropping the game while serving for the match, Bhupathi showed no panic, fully banking on his serves and ground strokes.

In the second singles, Paes’ back-of-the-court play had his nemesis Dmitry Tomashevich in some trouble, before pulling out a 7-5, 7-5 verdict. The India No 1 had a score to settle because he had lost to the Uzbek twice before.

Paes was broken while serving for the first set. Serving with new balls, he misjudged the pace of the Uzbek’s returns and dumped an easy volley into the net. Then, Tomashevich sent in a superb return on break point to get back on serve. Paes improved his game in the crucial 12th to set up three set points and took the set in the second.

In the second set, Paes had an early break but lost it at next serve and had to wait till the 12th to finally seal the match in India’s favour. Paes snatched the match on the first match point with a backhand cross court return which the Uzbek netted.

The Indian second string notched up their first win of the tournament, beating Chinese Taipei. The main actors in India A switched roles today and yesterday’s hero Vasudeva Reddy let go a first set advantage to go down in three sets. But it was Gaurav Natekar who was made to sweat for his first singles win after he lost to Vishaal Uppal in the hardcourt nationals. He levelled scores and joined Vikram Venkatraghavan for a straight set win.

They will now slug it out for the fifth place against The Philippines while Chinese Taipei will fight it out against Thailand to avoid the last spot among the eight teams.

Results (round robin): Group A: India bt Uzbekistan 2-1; Mahesh Bhupathi bt Vadim Kutsenko 6-3, 6-4; Leander Paes bt Dmitry Tomashevich 7-5, 7-5; Sandeep/Nitin Kirtane lost to Vadim Kutsenko/Tomashevich 2-6, 7-5, 6-3.Philippines bt Thailand 3-0: Bryan Juinio bt Vittaya Samrej 6-2, 7-6 (2); Joseph Lizardo bt Vorapol Thongkamchoo 6-1, 6-4; Robert Angelo/Lizardo bt Vittaya/Virat Baerrohim 6-4, 6-4. Wibowo 6-4, 7-5; Dong-Hyun Kim bt Andrian Raturandang 6-3, 7-6 (5); Nam-Hoon/Dong-Hyun bt Wibowo/Bonit Wiryawan 6-3, 6-4. India A bt Chinese Taipie 2-1: Vasudeva Reddy lost to Wei Jen Cheng 4-6, 6-4, 6-2; Gaurav Natekar bt Jinn Yen Chiang 7-6 (4), 7-5; Gaurav Natekar/Vikram Venkatraghavan bt Wei Jen Cheng/Jinn Yen Chang 6-4, 6-2.

Semifinal line-up: India vs Indonesia; South Korea vs Uzbekistan.5th-6th play off: Philippines vs India A; 7th-8th play-off: Thailand vs Chinese Taipei.