Leander Paes [Images] and Nenad Zimonjic lost an opportunity to confirm their place at the season-ending Tennis Masters Cup in Shanghai when they were upset by the unseeded Croatian pair of Ivo Karlovic and Lovro Zovko in the first round of the Swiss Indoors tournament at Basel, Switzerland [Images].
The Indo-Serbian combination, seeded third in the tournament, went down in straight sets 6-7, 3-6 and would now have to wait until next week to know if they have made it to the season finale in China.
The Croatians were alternates for the draw and replaced the team of Argentine Juan Ignacio Chela and Nicolas Massu of Chile after the former withdrew citing personal reasons.
Paes and Zimonjic could have secured one of the three remaining Shanghai team berths this week by making it one round further than the pairings of Simon Aspelin-Todd Perry and Jonathan Erlich-Andy Ram.
Aspelin/Perry are playing in the quarter-finals in St.Petersburg on Thursday while Erlich/Ram have advanced to the semi-finals in Lyon.
There is only one tournament, the BNP Paribas Masters in Paris, before the Tennis Masters Cup and the results there would determine whether Paes and Zimonjic are among the elite eight teams taking the field in China.
Paes and Zimonjic had reached the fifth spot in the race to Shanghai by reaching the finals in two successive tournaments -- the Stockholm Open and the Madrid Masters.
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