Bhupathi-Knowles out of French Open doubles

Paris:

Mahesh Bhupathi and Mark Knowles of Bahamas bowed out in the pre-quarterfinals of the mens doubles event at French Open here, losing in a tough three-setter against unseeded Jose Acasuso of Argentina and Fernando Gonzalez of Chile.

The fourth seeded Indo-Bahamian pair toiled hard on the court for an hour and 56 minutes against the surprise package of Acasuso and Gonzalez before eventually losing the gruesome third round encounter 7-5, 4-6, 6-4.

Interestingly, there was nothing much to differentiate between the two pairs apart from the total number of points won. While Bhupathi-Knowles won 96 points in the entire match, their opponents scored a perfect 100.

With this loss, Bhupathi's campaign in this year's French Open came to a disappointing end as partnering Sania Mirza, he had already crashed out of the mixed doubles event, losing in the first round in straight sets against French-Israeli duo of Nathalie Dechy and Andy Ram.