Madrid Open: Bhupathi-Bopanna knocked out in quarters

Madrid – India’s campaign at the Madrid Open ended after Mahesh Bhupathi and Rohan Bopanna were knocked out in straight sets in the quarterfinals by France’s Jeremy Chardy and Poland’s Lukasz Kubot.

The sixth seeds put up little fight as they were thrashed 2-6, 4-6 here Friday.

The unseeded French-Polish pairing won every single point on their first serves in the first set and had an overall match percentage of 87.

Bhupathi and Bopanna looked completely out of sorts in the first and failed to win a single break point opportunity.

The Indian pair, though, fought back in the second and for a while had their opponents on the ropes but failed to convert even one of the six break point opportunities they had won.

Chardy and Kubot will now face face number one seeds Bob and Mike Bryan in the semis.

Leander Paes and his Austrian partner Jurgen Melzer were easily ousted by German-Czech pairing of Tommy Haas and Radek Stepanek in the pre-quarters Thursday.

The other Indian in the fray, Sania Mirza, was ousted along with her partner Bethanie Mattek-Sands in the second round, losing to unseeded Russian-Czech Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and Lucie Safarova Wednesday.