Playing their last tournament before the Olympics next month, Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi crashed out of the Indianapolis championship with a first round defeat after having held a match point.

The top seeded pair, having got together for two tournaments as part of their preparations for the Beijing Games, failed to hold their nerve in the match tiebreak and went down to the Canadian duo of Daniel Nestor and Frederic Niemeyer 6-4, 3-6, 12-10 in one hour and 25 minutes. Nestor is the 2000 Olympic doubles champion with Sebastien Lareau.

Squandered chance

Paes and Bhupathi had trailed 6-9, with the Canadian wildcards holding three match points. However, they stormed back to level at 9-9, and then got a match point of their own at 10-9. But they failed to convert that and Nestor and Niemeyer won the next three points to prevail against the former world No. 1 pair.

Having gotten off the mark slow, the Indian pair came back to square the match in the second. But the topsy-turvy decider tiebreak finally settled in the Canadians’ favour.

Nestor and Niemeyer are also a pair in the Olympic competition, and were playing their first ever ATP tournament together. Nestor, the world No.1 doubles player, completed a career Golden Slam after winning the Wimbledon title with Serb Nenad Zimonjic earlier this month.

Paes and Bhupathi’s career win-loss record now stands at 217-79.

Prakash upsets top seed

Aptos: Continuing his rich vein of form, Prakash Amritraj upset top seed Amer Delic of America at the Comerica Bank Challenger in Aptos, California, after prevailing in three sets 6-4, 4-6, 6-3. Amritraj and Delic split sets before play was suspended due to darkness. When the match resumed, Amritraj stormed out to a 5-0 lead in the third set before closing out the match.

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