The Indian challenge in the doubles event of the ATP Chennai Open ended on Friday when top seeds Mahesh Bhupathi and partner Mark Knowles of Bahamas were shocked by the unseeded Swiss duo of Jean Claude Scherrer and Stanislas Wawrinka 3-6, 6-3, 8-10 in the quarter-finals.
With the second seeded duo of Leander Paes amd Laukas Dlouhy (Czech Republic) suffering a shock defeat in the first round earlier, Bhupathi was the lone surviving Indian in the doubles and the home crowd expected the veteran to keep the Indian interest alive by making the final.
But the world number three pair failed to hold on to their advantages and had no clue about what was happening in the final stages of the tie-breaker.
"The tie-break play in doubles has always been tricky and it is a lottery. We could not succeed in the final stretch," said Bhupathi after the defeat
In another late night doubles quarter-final, the German pair of Bjorn Phau and Rainer Schuettler beat the Spanish duo of Marcel Granollers and Santiago Ventura 6-3, 6-7(4), 10-7.
In Saturday's semi-finals, Scherrer and Wawrinka take on the American combine of Scott Lipsky and David Martin while Phau and Schuettler, who had ousted the Paes-Dlouhy pair in the first round, clash with Eric Butorac and Rajeev Ram, also from the US.
