Mahesh Bhupathi and his new partner Chris Haggard of South Africa failed in their first outing together as they lost to wildcard entrants in opening round of the USD 925,000 ATP event at Kitzbuhel in Austria.

Bhupathi-Haggard went down to Phillip Kohlschreiber of Germany and Stefan Koubek of Austria 4-6, 6-3, 5-10 in the clay court tennis tournament on Wednesday.

Kohlschreiber and Koubek will next play Juan Ignacio Chela of Argentina and Luis Horna, who defeated third seeds Czech duo of Frantisek Cermak and Leos Friedl 6-3, 2-6, 10-8.