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Bhupathi-Lucic out of Australian Open

The 4th seeded pair of Mahesh Bhupathi and Croatian Mirjana Lucic were knocked out of the mixed doubles event in the Australian Open today.

They lost 6-7 (3-7), 6-2, 7-6 (7-1) to the Americans Donald Johnson and Kimberly Po in their second-round match, which lasted just over two hours.

Bhupathi/Lucic, runners-up at Wimbledon last year and quarter-finalists at the US Open 1998, appeared to have got the upper hand after winning the first set tie-breaker comfortably. But it was the same problem of not being able to hold serve when Lucic was serving, which took away the match from them.

The set saw both teams being broken on serve twice. Lucic's serve was broken in 4th and 12th game, while Po was broken in the 7th and 11th game before the set went in tiebreaker. Mahesh/Lucic kept cool and took the tiebreaker and the set.

But the first game of the second set, which Bhupathi served, saw them lose all initiative. Bhupathi made three errors at the net and then double-faulted at breakpoint. Then Lucic was broken in the third game and the set was gone 2-6.

Lucic appeared to be playing better than yesterday but clearly something was missing in Bhupathi's game as the pair tried in vain to regroup.

After losing the second set easily, Mahesh was broken once again, in the 5th game of the third set. In the next game, he had an argument with the umpire about a let call and after the next point, hit the ball hard and high, far out of court two, and was promptly given a code of conduct violation warning.

To be fair to Bhupathi, there was some problem with the electronic let-calling machine, several seemingly good serves being called let throughout the match.

Bhupathi tried to pump himself up and they broke Po in the 8th game to make it 4-4. However, they lost their chance to win when they allowed Po to hold serve in the 12th game, after she had double-faulted twice.

In the doubles, Paes/Bhupathi entered the quarterfinals defeating Adams/deJager 6-4, 7-6(4).

In the first set, Paes/Bhupathi got a break in the 5th game to go up 3-2, and then cruised to 6-4.

In the second set, Paes/Bhupathi were up a break by 3-2 again. They had a chance to finish the match early in 10th game when Mahesh was serving for the match at 40-15 with double match points. But he could not finish it there and it was deuce in the game. Had a match point again at AD and once again fell a bit short.

Then Paes/Bhupathi dropped the serve, and suddenly it was 5-5. In the tiebreaker they traded two minibreaks each at first, but after it was 4-4, Paes/Bhuapthi won the next three points to finish the match at 6-4, 7-6(4).

The others to win and reach the quarterfinals were the 2nd seeds Woodies, who won easily over the 15th seeded Black/Stolle, 10th seed Kafelnikov/Vacek, who won a tough three-setter against Arnold/Vizner, and Reneberg/Stark who upset the 7th seeds Delaitre/Santoro.

Paes/Bhupathi will face Reneberg/Stark tomorrow in the quarterfinals.