Bhupathi-Gimelstob crashes out of Nottingham Open

New Delhi, Jun 20 (UNI) In what came as a shock, fourth seeds Mahesh Bhupathi and his American partner Justin Gimelstob crashed out in the first-round of the Nottingham Open, bowing down to British pair of Joshua Goodall and Ross Hutchins.

In an engrossing encounter that lasted little over one and a half hour, the Indo-American duo wasted a one-set lead to go down fighting 7-5, 4-6, 8-10 against the wildcards, according to information received here.

The fourth seeds started the match on an impressive note by winning the first set after breaking their opponents' serve once.

However, they could not sustain the lead as the British pair came back strongly and broke the Indo-American pair once to pocket the second set.

The super tie-breaker turned out to be a do or die battle as both the pairs were in no mood to give up easily, but Goodall and Hutchins kept their nerve and eventually came out on top, courtesy their better first serve percentage, and thereby advanced to the second round of the 353,450 Euro tournament.

UNI