Bhupathi-Tarango in semis

Indian doubles ace Mahesh Bhupathi and Jeff Tarango of the United States stormed into the doubles semi-finals in the $100,000 Kremlin Cup, being played in Moscow, Russia.

The Indo-American pair, unseeded in the tournament, upset the third seeded pair of Wayne Black and Kevin Ullyett of Zimbabwe 7-6(5), 6-3 in a quarter-final match on Thursday.

It was a close match. The first set went with serve. Bhupathi/Tarango didn't face any break-points, but they did waste the only break chance they got, off Ullyett's serve in the ninth game.

In the tie-breaker, the Indo-American pair were trailing 1-4, but won five points in a row including, two off Ullyett, to go up 6-4. The duo were unable to convert the first set point off Bhupathi's serve, but went on the convert the next point off Wayne Black's serve to take the set.

In the second set, they converted the first break chance, off Ullyett's serve, in the sixth game to go up 4-2, but had to save three break-points in the next game on Tarango's serve. Then Mahesh served off the ninth game to take the match.

The duo fired four aces as compared to only one by their opponents. The match took an hour and 23 minutes.

Bhupathi/Tarango will face the second seeded Czech pair of Jiri Novak and Rikl David in the semis. Novak/Rikl defeated David Adams of South Africa and Martin Garcia of Argentina 7-5, 6-7(5), 6-3 in their quarter-final match.

In the other semi-final, the top seed American pair of Donald Johnson and Jared Palmer will face fourth seed Max Mirnyi of Belarus and Sandon Stolle of Australia.

Earlier, Bhupathi/Tarango defeated the Australian pair of Joshua Eagle and Andrew Florent 3-6, 6-2, 7-5 in the first round.

Last week, Bhupathi, partnering with old friend Mose Navarra of Italy, lost in the quarter-finals of the $ 400,000 ATP tournament in Palermo, Sicily, in Italy.

Bhupathi is playing with new partners becuase it was decided before the Davis Cup postponement that Leander Paes would be skipping these two weeks. Thus Mahesh is playing with Tarango this week at Moscow.

Paes was to join Bhupathi in the third week of October at Vienna - but it won't be possible as it is Davis Cup week for the India-US tie.

The tournament in Italy was not scheduled for Mahesh, but the Indian wanted to get away from New York and hit the courts to get match practice before the important Davis Cup tie.