Leander Paes [Images] and his partner Nenad Zimonjic fell at the final hurdle for the second successive week when they were defeated by Mark Knowles and Daniel Nestor of the Bahamas in three hard-fought sets at the Madrid Masters tournament.

Paes and his Serbian partner went down 3-6 6-3 6-2 to the third seeded pairing in the exciting final played at the Madrid Arena. The Knowles-Nestor combination thus successfully defended the title they won in 2004 beating the Bryan brothers in the championship round.

Sunday's victory is their 13th ATP Masters series crown and third in Madrid.

The pair from the Bahamas got off to a quick start and pocketed the first set 6-3. But Paes and Zimonjic made a strong comeback and took the second with an identical score-line.

But the Indo-Serbian pair, currently sixth in the race to the Tennis Masters Cup, could not sustain the momentum and went down 2-6 in the third set to lose the match.

Last week, Paes and Zimonjic lost in the Stockholm Open final to Australians Paul Hanley [Images] and Wayne Arthurs.

However, the final appearance is expected to provide a boost to their chances of appearing in the season ending Tennis Masters Cup in Shanghai.

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