Bhupathi-Istomin advance, Devvarman ousted in Dubai

Dubai, Feb 26 (IANS) India’s Mahesh Bhupathi and his Uzbek partner Denis Istomin advanced to the second round of men’s doubles while Somdev Devvarman was knocked out of the singles second round at the Dubai Duty Free Championships here Wednesday.

Bhupathi and Istomin came back from a set down to beat Austrian Oliver Marach and Romanian Florin Mergea 4-6, 6-3, 16-14 in a super tie-break in an hour and 29 minutes.

The Indian-Uzbek pair served very erratically. They had six aces but also managed to make seven double faults.

The failure to convert break point opportunities cost the Austrian-Romanian pair easily. They managed to convert just two off seven break points while Bhupathi and Istomin had just two break point chances in the entire match and converted both of them.

In the earlier match of the day, top-ranked Indian Somdev Devvarman lost to Tunisian Malek Jaziri 3-6, 5-7 in the second round.

On Monday, Devvarman, ranked 78, had beaten world no.5 Juan Martin del Potro who retired with a wrist injury after losing the first set.

The Indian had entered the Dubai tournament high on confidence, winning the $100,000 ATP Challenger Delhi Open Sunday. Courtesy that win, he jumped 18 places to 78 in the latest rankings.