Mahesh Bhupathi loses at Australian Open

Melbourne, Jan 22: Mahesh Bhupathi’s comeback trail to the circuit was cut short here on Friday as the Indian tennis veteran, with Luxembourgish Gilles Muller, lost their men’s doubles second round in straight sets to the Bryan brothers at the Australian Open here on Friday.

The third seeded Bryan brothers Bob and Mike took just 53 minutes to oust Bhupathi and Muller 6-3, 6-2 on Show Court No.3 of Melbourne Park. The Americans were far better than their opponents on the day with the Indo-Luxembourg pair not able to match up to the pacey standards of modern doubles tennis.

Bhupathi looked completely out of touch and the pair made 13 unforced errors, 10 more than their opponents, negating the fact that their total number of winners matched those of Bob and Mike. Bhupathi and Muller’s returns and shots were wayward, with the ball regularly hitting the net or going out of the field of play.

Also, the third seeds won a total of 58 points in the entire contest, which was 19 more than their opponents. Indo-Romanian fourth seeds Rohan Bopanna and Florin Mergea will play their men’s doubles second round later in the day against the Czech pair of Lukas Dlouhy and Jiri Vesely.

Defending champions in the mixed doubles category, Leander Paes and Martina Hingis’ opening match against British-Russian pairing of Dominic Inglot and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova was cancelled due to heavy showers. (IANS)