Bhupathi-Huber crash out, Paes-Black in 2nd round

Top seeds Mahesh Bhupathi and Lizel Huber made a shock first round exit from the mixed doubles event of the French Open with a straight set defeat at the hands of Yung-Jan Chan and Eric Butorac on Saturday.

Bhupathi and his American partner Huber came up with a listless performance against their unseeded rivals to lose the match 1-6, 4-6 in 55 minutes at Roland Garros.

The Indo-American duo could win just one game in the opening set which they lost in just 21 minutes as they allowed the duo of Chinese Taipei's Chan and American Butorac break them thrice.

Bhupathi and Huber looked set for amending their first set lapse when they broke their opponents in the first and third games of the second set to race to 3-0.

But, the Indo-American duo could not hold their serve in the fourth game and then were broken again in the sixth game to allow their opponents levelled the scoreline 3-3.

The experienced Bhupathi and Huber then crumbled and at 4-5 they failed to hold their serve to lose the second set and the match.

Another Indian, Leander Paes, however, advanced to the second round with his partner Cara Black after an easy straight-set win over the local pair of Pauline Parmentier and Marc Gicquel.

The second seeded Indo-Zimbabwean pair needed just 59 minutes to dispatch their local opponents 6-3, 6-3 in the first round of the clay court Grand Slam.

Paes and Black broke their rivals thrice in the opening set while dropping their serve once. Placed comfortably, they then broke the local team twice to seal the match in their favour.

They will next take on the winners of the first round match between Rennae Stubbs/Robert Lindstedt and Su-Wei Hsieh/Bruno Soares.