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Paes, Bhupathi have rough outings

It's a bad week for Indian tennis stars Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi.

Paes lost in the second round of the Binghamton Challenger, going down to Cristiano Caratti of Italy 3-6, 3-6. Once ranked as high as number 26 in the world, Caratti has slipped considerably since, and is now 149 on the ATP listings.

In the first round match, Paes defeated Petr Luxa of the Czech Republic 6-1, 6-2.

Paes managed nine points, taking his total to 497 which still will leave him outside the top 100 when the ATP rankings are released on Tuesday.

Paes will now play the qualifiers at New Haven, and is likely to be top seeded there.

Meanwhile Mahesh Bhupathi, seeded second in tandem with Paul Haarhuis, lost in the second round of the Cincinnati Super 9 Great American Insurance ATP Championship, going down to the unseeded, unheralded pair of Pablo Albano (Argentina) and Nicolas Lapentti (Ecuador) 5-7, 6-7 (3-7).

The Albano/Lapentti combo is ranked 44 in world doubles, and will gain 45 bonus points for beating a team with two top-5 players.

Bhupathi, meanwhile, continues to find bad luck with partners other than Paes, this being his second outing with Haarhuis, both of them ending in defeat.