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Paes-Bhupathi on a tough wicket at Toronto

Mahesh Bhupathi lost in the quarter final of the Istanbul Challenger, proving unable to cope with 6th seed Petr Luxa.

Bhupathi, who went down 6-1, 7-6, had a terrible first set for the third match in a row. In the first two rounds, Bhupathi had managed to come back strongly after bad beginnings. Here again, he had six set points in the second set, but failed to wrap up the set and stage a comeback.

Interestingly Bhupathi, who has been experimenting with a new Spaulding racquet, reverted to his old one midway through the match and straightaway played better tennis.

Bhupathi picked up 21 points in Istanbul, and has moved up 65 spots to be at 342 in ATP rankings released today, a quantum jump from his earlier position of 407. The higher rankings will help him enter most of the Challengers, and that in turn means more opportunities to gain points and climb further up the ladder.

However, his individual rankings in doubles slipped, this week, from number three to number six, putting him just ahead of Leander Paes who stays on seven.

The reason for Mahesh's fall is that he lost the points gained during the Canadian Super 9 at this time last year. With the tournament being played a week later than last year, this meant that Bhupathi lost points for no fault of us, the ATP adhering strictly to a 52 week period regardless of when a tournament repeats.

Leander, too, lost the same number of points, but the fact that he was 800 points ahead of the next ranked Ellis Ferreira means he does not suffer a drop in his individual ranking in world doubles.

The new ATP rankings released for this week also have Leander Paes at his second highest ranking ever, at 101. He was at number 98 for one week in 1997. Prahlad Srinath is at number 451 and Fazaluddin is at number 615.

Bhupathi will give the Binghamton Challenger in Toronto a miss, though his friend and doubles partner Leander Paes will figure in that tournament. Prahlad Srinath and Fazaluddin meanwhile are attempting to get through the qualifiers for the Toronto event.

Bhupathi's next outing thus is at the Cincinnati Super 9, where he will figure in the doubles with Paul Haarhuis, one half of the top-ranked Haarhuis-Jacco Eltingh combine.

To watch out for, however, is the du Maurier Canadian Open in Toronto which features a very strong doubles field.

The tournament will feature at the least 6 of the top ten doubles combos. The field is led by world number three Bhupathi/Paes, with number four Ferreira/Leach, number five Montana/Johnson, number six Bjorkman/Rafter, number eight Galbraith/Steven and number ten Knowles/Nestor making up the other stellar combinations.

Notable absentees are the two top-ranked teams -- world number one Paul Haarhuis and Jacco Eltingh, and number two Todd Woodbridge and Mark Woodforde.

Two seeded pairs advanced on the first day of the competition against unranked, unseeded opposition. The seventh seeded Canadian pair of Mark Knowles/Daniel Nestor defeated Kitinov-Wibier 6-3, 7-5, while the eighth-seeded US duo Johnson and Montana fought back after being a set down to defeat Larose/Turek 2-6, 6-4, 6-3.

"Indian Express", as Bhupathi and Paes like to call their combination, will have their work cut out for them to defend the title they won here last year.

The Indians play their first match here on Wednesday, having received a bye in the opening round.

Leander for his part decided not to play the qualifiers at the Canadian Open, as his rib cage still hurts a bit and he doesn't want to overstrain himself. Had he played, he would have been top-seeded in the qualifiers. His bid to get into the main draw is stymied by the fact that the draw was based on the June 22nd ATP rankings, which shuts the door at number 101 whereas at the time, Paes was number 123.

Doctors consulted by Leander have assured him that there are no broken bones, as the result of his fall in the dressing room after a practise session with world number one Pete Sampras. Leander has been told however that the muscles around the rib area are banged up, and that the area is notorious for being slow to heal.

Leander and trainer Sanjay Singh thus went up to see Niagara Falls over the weekend, with strict instructions from coach Carmichael not to fall off the waterfall. Apparently, Carmichael is well aware of his ward's propensity to find ways of injuring himself on even the most innocent of outings.

Nirupama Vaidyanathan, meanwhile, is in Lexington, Kentucky, for the challenger after a couple of days off in the San Fransisco bay area.

Despite residual shoulder trouble, she is in better health than she has been for some months now, and happy at having picked up a few points over the last three, four weeks. She has moved up to 160 from 165 in the latest WTA rankings which is her highest ranking this year. In doubles she is at 208.