No problem with Todd: Mahesh

When Mahesh Bhupathi and Australian Todd Woddbridge teamed up early this year, they were supposed to be ‘the pair’. Only six month...

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When Mahesh Bhupathi and Australian Todd Woddbridge teamed up early this year, they were supposed to be ‘the pair’. Only six months later, the Indo-Aussie duo will no longer share a court as Woodbridge unexpectedly announced his retirement.

“No hard feelings,” Bhupathi may have said but the decision for the Indian has come as an insult to injury- it came after their third round loss at Wimbledon. While Bhupathi honours Woodbridge’s decision, with a “life goes on,” verdict, the Aussie, according to Bhupathi, “was pretty upset and needed to be cajoled.”

Having won three consecutive finals at Wimbledon — all with Jonas Bjorkman — Woodbridge’s loss seemed to hurt him a lot. Bhupathi’s response to this: “Well that’s his (Woodbridge) problem, winning and losing are part of any sport.”

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The 34-year-old Woodbridge, with 83 doubles titles under his belt including 16 Grand Slams, was quite keen to add the men’s doubles title to make it a Perfect 10 at Wimbledon, before signing out.

“Everybody has expectations,” Bhupathi informs, “but as far as the partnership was concerned, I never had a problem.”

Incidentally, Woodbridge, was quoted saying that his partnership hadn’t worked out quite as well as he planned.

Mahesh, Mary win

Mahesh Bhupathi continued his successful run with new partner Mary Pierce as they beat the all-Belgian 12th seeded team of Kim Clijsters and Olivier Rochus in the quarterfinals 6-1, 7-5. They await the winners of the match between Todd Woodbridge & Samantha Stosur and Jonas Bjorkman & Lisa Raymond.

Shokeen out

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In the boys’ doubles, though, Vivek Shokeen and his partner Abdullah Magdas lost to Samuel Groth and Andrew Kennaugh 3-6, 2-6.

Semis suspended

Play in the men’s semi-final between Andy Roddick and Thomas Johansson was suspended because of rain on Friday. Roddick was leading 6-5 in the first set on serve.