Bhupathi-Stepanek storm into semis; All over for Paes at French Open

Paris, June 6 (UNI) Mahesh Bhupathi made a strong claim for a third French Open Doubles title sans Leander Paes, as he and Czech partner Radek Stepanek stunned second seeds Jonas Bjorkman and Max Mirnyi to storm into men's doubles semifinals here.

However, compatriot Leander Paes' campaign came to an end with a Mixed Doubles quarter-final defeat after already crashing out of his favourite Doubles competition in the second round itself.

Paes had to bite the dust again as he and American partner Meghan Shaughnessy went down to the Chinese-Austrian duo of Sun Tiantian and Julian Knowle 6-4, 4-6, 7-10, while Bhupathi and Czech Republic's Stepanek upset Sweden's Bjorkman and Belarussian Mirnyi 3-6, 6-1, 7-6 (8/6) in the quarterfinals.

Bhupathi and Stepanek was slow to get off the blocks, losing the first set without putting up much of a fight.

But the formidable duo came back stronger in the second set, converting two breakpoints, apart from saving all three to pocket the set 6-1 and gain the psychological advantage going into the decider where they held their composure to end up victorious in the nail-biting contest.

The Indo-Czech pair battled for two and a quarter hours in which they sent down four aces to the rivals' one and committed only three double faults compared to eight by the rivals.

However, it took nearly 2 hours and fifteen minutes to get past the Bjorkman-Mirnyi pair, with the final set alone lasting more than an hour.

They will now meet Mark Knowles (Bahama) and Daniel Nestor (Canada) for a place in the final.

Paes and Shaughnessy seized the early initiative against the Sun-Knowle pair, by grabbing the first set 6-4 but allowed their opponents to stage a comeback in the second set.

Sun and Knowle broke their Indo-American opponents twice to pocket the second set and kept their cool in the super tie-break to emerge winners in over one-and-half hours contest.

Paes had earlier bowed out of the men's doubles event where he and Martin Damm, were stunned by Michael Kohlmann and Rainer Scheuttler in the second round.

If Bhupathi wins the French Open Doubles this time, it will be his 11th Grand slam title. The last time he got his hands on the Double trophy at Roland Garros was way back in 2001 when he and Paes defeated the Czech combo of Petr Pala and Ravel Vizner 7-6, 6-3.

Bhupathi has never won the French Open doubles title withour Paes.

UNI