Leander, Nirupama lose
in qualifying finals

The Indian challenge at the Australian Open 2001qualifiers ended on Saturday, when Leander Paes and Nirupama Vaidhyanathan lost in the finals.

Paes lost to Marcos Ondruska of South Africa 6-3, 5-7, 3-6, while Nirupama lost to 19th seed Alexandra Fusai of France 5-7, 6-2, 2-6.

Paes started well, holding serve and breaking Ondruska in the second game, aided by two double faults from the South African. Paes tightened the screws with another break in game 4 as well, converting his first two break chances. Paes had to struggle in game 5 and faced a break attempt before he went up 5-0.

Ondruska held his serve in the next game and broke Paes in game 7, to get a break back, and held easily in the next game to close the gap to 5-3.

Paes tightened his game and closed it with a love game to go up 6-3 in the first set.

In the second set, Paes again got on top quickly, converting the first break chance he got in the first game.

Paes had a couple of good chances to increase his lead in the 5th game, but he could not convert them.

Ondruska held his serve in the next game and broke Paes in the next game to tie at 3-3.

Ondruska seemed to be playing well at this point, hitting many winners and went up 5-4 with an easy game.

Paes ran into trouble in the 12th game, when Ondruska broke him at 30-40, to tie it up at a set apiece.

Paes started the final set well with a break in the very first chance.

At 3-1, Paes had two break chances at AD out, which he could not convert.

Again Paes was taken to two deuces by Ondruska, and was broken, to make it 3-3.

Paes lost his serve again in game 8, when he fell 3-5.

Ondruska won 4 games in a row.

Ondruska had a match point at 40-30 in the next game, but Paes forced a deuce.

Finally, Ondruska closed it at 6-3 on his third match point.

Last year, Paes has defeated Ondruska in the finals of the qualifiers.

Nirupama was broken in game 5 of the first set. She then had a break chance at 30-40 in the next game, but could not convert. Nirupama made three unforced errors along with winners in that game, and Fusai held to go up 4-2.

Nirupama then had two AD break points in the 8th game, and she converted the second to tie it up at 4-4.

Nirupama pulled up from 2-4 to 5-4; she had hit 10 winners and had only five unforced errors.

At 5-5, Nirupama had four unforced errors in a row, and she dropped serve again. Then, Fusai held with three more unforced errors from Nirupama to win the set at 7-5.

Nirupama cut down on the unforced errors in the second set and games went with serves till the sixth game.

A winner from Nirupama and two mistakes from Fusai resulted in double-break chances at 15-40 for the Indian.

Nirupama served a winner at the first chance to go up 4-2. Niru held easily in the next game.

She kicked it up a notch in the next game at 5-2, to go after Fusai's serve.

From 15-30 down, she won three points in a row to wrap up the set and tie it up at a set apiece.

In the third set, the Indian started badly and lost her serve. In game 4, Fusai made three mistakes to lose her serve and the score again tied at 2-2. That didn't last either, as Nirupama dropped serve at 15-40 in the next game to fall to 2-3.

In game 7, Nirupama was broken again to give Fusai a lead of 5-2. Fusai won the match on the second matchpoint.

Last year, Nirupama lost in the qualifying final to Kerry-Anne Guse, after retiring hurt.

Nirupama picked up 22 points, including two and eight bonus points for the first and second round wins from the qualifiers, while Paes picked up eight ATP points.