Paes-Bhupathi knocked out of French Open

Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi bowed out of the French Open men's doubles event with a straight-set defeat against unseeded Australian combination of Stephen Huss and Ashley Fisher in Paris on Saturday.

The formidable third seed Indian pair, who were runners-up at Australian Open this year, lost 6-7 (7), 4-6 in the second round in a contest that last an hour and 32 minutes.

Paes and Bhupathi had incidentally won their last Grand Slam title at this very venue in 2001. After that, they had split and played with different partners.

They decided to join forces just ahead of the season and began the re-union by winning the Chennai Open and then reaching the Australian Open final.

It was a scintillating contest of tennis on Saturday as both the teams fought tooth and nail.

There was only one breakpoint in the whole match, which Fisher and Huss converted in the second set to move to the next level.

Later in the day, Paes and his partner Iveta Benesova of Czech Republic will take on Chia-Jung Chuang of Chinese Taipei and Marcin Matkowski of Poland in the mixed doubles second round.