Down and out Down Under

Shailesh Soni

The Indian challenge in the Australian Open mixed doubles ended on Monday with both Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi losing in the second round.

The seventh seed pair of Bhupathi and Ai Sugiyama lost to the Australian pair of Peter Tramacchi and Rachel McQuillan 6-7(3-7), 6-7(6-8), while Paes and Lisa Raymond lost to third seeds Ellis Ferreira and Corina Morariu 5-7, 6-7(3-7).

Bhupathi/Sugiyama lost a very close match. Statistically, the match was one of the very rare cases when the losing team actually won more points than the winning team. Bhupathi and Sugiyama won 86 points to 82 by Tramacchi and McQuillan. They converted one of five break chances as compared to one of four by the Australians. Thus, it came down to closing out the tiebreakers, where the Indo-Japanese pair were found wanting.

Paes and Raymond also lost a close match. They converted both the break chances they had, as opposed to 3 of 7 by their oppenents, but the difference was in total points won -- 63 points to 77 by their opponents -- which cost the Indo-American pair the match.

In the juniors singles, Sunil Kumar lost his first round match to second seed Roman Valent of Switzerland 4-6, 4-6.

Sunil was broken in the third game of the first set.

In the second set, Sunil was again broken in the third game. However, the Indian fought back to break Valent in the sixth game, but lost serve again in the ninth game to lose the match.