Baghdatis too good for Prakash

Marcos Bagdhatis proved too hot to handle for Prakash Amritraj as the Indian lost to formidable Cyprus star in straight sets at the ATP Vancouver Open.

Prakash lost 4-6, 1-6 to third seed Baghdatis, a 2006 Australian Open finalist, in the second round match of the USD 1,00,000 hard court event.

Prakash and his Pakistani Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi, seeded third, are already out of doubles event after suffering a shock opening match defeat 2-6, 2-6 to unseeded Kyu Tae Im of Korea and Marinko Matosevic of Australia.

Harsh Mankad and his American partner David Martin had also lost their first round match 6-7(7), 2-6 to Israeli pair of Amir Hadad and Harel Levy.

Bhupathi-Knowles bow out of Legg Mason Classic

Meanwhile, Mahesh Bhupathi and his partner Mark Knowles, seeded third, crashed out of the ATP Legg Mason Classic event after losing a tough quarterfinal match to Martin Damm and Robert Lindstedt.

The Indo-Bahamian pair made a good start by annexing the first set but their opponents counter attacked and took away the match 3-6, 6-1, 16-14 in one hour and 26 minutes.

Bhupathi and Knowles broke the Czech-Swedish combination once and saved a breakpoint to go one set up.

However, Damm and Lindstedt refused to take the beating hands down and staged a brilliant comeback.

They broke Bhupathi and Knowles twice and saved the only breakpoint they faced to win the second set and drew parity.

The decisive super tie-break saw an intense fight, which the unseeded pair won to advance to semifinals.

Meanwhile, Somdev Devvarman, who shocked world number 15 Marin Cilic yesterday, will face big serving Ivo Carlovic of Croatia in the singles third round.

Karlovic beat Germany's Rainer Schuettler 6-4, 7-5 in his second round match.