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Bhupathi goes down tamely in final

India's last hope in the men's singles, Mahesh Bhupathi went down without a fight in the final of the French Open qualifier. He was beaten 3-6, 2-6 by Marcelo Filippini.

The match started with Mahesh having serious difficulty in getting his first serves in the first two games. Filippini broke in the third, after which games went with service till the ninth, when Filippini seemed to gain momentum. Though Mahesh brought his first serve percentage up from 25% to 60%, by then Filippini had started hitting more and more winners. Filippini ended with 23 winners to 10 by Mahesh.

Late in the first set, Filippini and Mahesh had won 28 and 23 points respectively, but after that Filippini won 28 points to just 13 by Mahesh, and that meant the contest was going to be quite one-sided.

In the second set, Filippini continued to hold serve and troubled Mahesh seriously, breaking him in the second and eight games to wrap the match.

Mahesh now has to wait till the doubles competition begins on Wednesday. Both Leander and Mahesh are healthy now, and have over 300 points to defend at the French Open as they made it into the semi-finals last year.

This year has not been good for the Indian pair as they could not defend about 500 points from the clay Super 9s. It is going to be very tough for them to reach get their first grand slam final at the French Open and pick up 600 to 900 points.

Agencies