Bhupathi goes down

Indian doubles ace Mahesh Bhupathi crashed out of the $50,000 King's Cup Thailand Open tennis at the Muang Thong Thani Complex, in Bangkok, on Thursday.

Bhupathi went down to seventh seed Martin Verkerk of the Netherlands 6-7(3), 6-4, 3-6 in the second round.

The Indian played pretty well against the 169th ranked Dutch. After losing the first set in the tie-breaker, he came back to take the second set. However, he was unable to withstand the pressure and fell in the end.

He collected five ATP points for the first round win.

It was a modest but decent start to his comeback in the singles in the two Futures and the Challenger he played, picking up eight points to come up to about 775 in next week's rankings.

Both Paes and Bhupathi will be seen in action again in the Chennai Open.

In the women's doubles, second seed Manisha Malhotra and Mi-Ra Jeon of Korea defeated the wildcard Thai pair of Wilawan Choptang and Napaporn Tongsalee 6-2, 6-3 in the quarter-finals.

The duo now will face the fourth seeded Korean pair of Young-Ja Choi and Eun-Sook Kim in the semi-finals.

Related report:
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Paes crashes, Bhupathi advances
Paes, Bhupathi for Thailand Open