Tennis: Indian challenge ends at Legg Mason Classic

The Indian challenge ended at the ATP Legg Mason Classic after the opening round defeat of Rohan Bopanna and his Pakistani partner Aisam-ul-haq Qureshi in the doubles event in Washington.

The fourth seeded Indo-Pak pair fell 6-7(1), 7-6(6), 3-10 to the unseeded Mark Knowles of The Bahamas and Xavier Malisse of Belgium after putting up a gallant fight for one hour and 47 minutes.

Knowles and Malisse came into the tournament with a title win at Farmer's Classic last week. They had beaten the pair of Indo-Filipino pair of Somdev Devvarman and Treat Conrad Huey.

Earlier, Indian tennis star Somdev gave a scare to Marcos Baghdatis before going down to the seventh seed in a gruelling three-setter in the second round of the tournament.

The unseeded Indian battled for two hours and two minutes but lost 2-6, 6-0, 5-7 against the world number 26 from Cyprus at the $1,166,400 hard court tournament.

Somdev had beaten Baghdatis in March this year but after this win, the Cypriot leads the head-to-head record 2-1.

Somdev pocketed $7,585 as prize money and earned 20 ranking points for his effort.