Chennai Open: With Somdev's exit, Indian challenge ends

The Indian challenge ended at the Chennai Open tournament with Somdev Devvarman and his Ukrainian partner Sergiy Stakhovsky losing their doubles quarterfinal match to Thai brothers Sanchal and Sonchat Ratiwatana in straight sets.

The Indian-Ukrainian pair lost 3-6, 5-7 to the Thai twins in 66 minutes past midnight.

In the semi finals on Saturday, Ratiwatana brothers take on Germans Andre Begemann and Martin Emmrich and Benoit Paire of France and Stanislas Wawrinka (Sui) play Raven Klaasen (Rus) and Nicholas Monroe (USA).

With Devvarman's loss, the Indian challenge came to an end at the tournament.

On Friday, the top seeded pair of Mahesh Bhupathi and Canadian Daniel Nestor was ousted from the tournament with a 4-6, 5-7 shock defeat at the hands of the unseeded Russian-American pair of Raveen Klaasen and Nicholas Monroe in their doubles quarterfinal.

Rohan Bopanna and Rajiv Ram also crashed out in the quarter-finals against Stanislas Wawrinka and Benoit Paire.

Before this Paire and Wawrinka had ousted Indian pair of Sanam Singh and Vishnu Vardhan.

Leander Paes had also suffered a shock first round exit with Edouard Roger-Vasselin of France against the Ratiwatana brothers.

India's challenge had already ended in the singles.