Paes-Bhupathi stumble at first ATP c’ship hurdle

NEW YORK, Nov 19: The star Indian pair of Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi received a rude shock last night when the bottom seeded American ...

NEW YORK, Nov 19: The star Indian pair of Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi received a rude shock last night when the bottom seeded American duo of Donald Johnson and Fransisco Montana defeated them in gruelling three sets at the $800,000 ATP World Doubles Championship in Hartford near here.

The world number two Indians, who ended runners-up last year in their debut at the eight-pair championships, were in for a surprise when Johnson-Montana, rallied from one set down to record a 3-6, 6-4, 7-6 (7-4) victory in the league stage.

Winning the second set at

6-4 after earning one break, Johnson-Montana stretched the Indians to the limit as the decider went with the serves till 6-6.

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In the tie-break, the Americans, who got in here when the eighth best team of Jonas Bjorkman (Sweden) and Patrick Rafter (Australia) backed out following knee injury to the latter, combined well to upset the Indians.

Paes and Bhupathi still have a chance to make the semifinals. They need to win both their remaining matchesagainst Eltingh-Haarhuis and Ferreira-Leach.

Eight teams compete in the round-robin format in two groups of four each. The top two teams from each group will advance to the semifinals. All matches are best-of-three sets, with the final being best-of-five.