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Double defeat for Indians in Singapore

Indians had a bad day yesterday at the Heiniken Singapore Open, as both Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi lost their respective first round matches. Both, what's more, in straight sets.

While Paes lost 7-5, 6-1 to Martin Damm of the Czech Republic, Bhupathi went down 6-1, 6-3 to sixth-seeded Swede Mikael Tillstrom.

The Bhupathi-Tillstrom encounter was a one-sided affair, the Indian being broken right at the outset and going down another break in game 5 to hand the first set to Tillstrom.

In the second set, Mahesh started to play a little better, but could do little against the repertoire of shots in Tillstrom's arsenal. For the Indian, his serve just refused to click, and his groundstrokes kept carrying too far, resulting in more unforced errors than he could afford.

The Paes-Damm match wasn't however as one sided as the scoreline suggests -- the first set in particular could have gone either way. In fact, it was Leander who first broke Damm to go ahead ahead 3-2. Damm however broke back in the 8th game and again in the 12th -- after Leander saved one break point, then double faulted on the next -- to clinch the set.

Another break in the second game of the second set seemed to take the stuffing out of Leander. He was broken again in the 6th, and the game as a contest was virtually over at that point.

In the post match interview, Leander said the court was very sluggish and played like clay. Further, he and Mahesh had just come off a long week in Shanghai -- which, the Indian ace said, also accounted for the pair's lacklustre performance in the first round doubles win. "We were tired," said Leander about that performance. About his match against Martin Damm, he lost fire in the second set because, apparently, his left heel was bruised.

Later today, Paes and Bhupathi play their quarterfinal match against Tuomas Ketola/Laurence Tieleman.