Eighth seeds Leander Paes and David Rikl lost in the semi-finals of the $2.4 million ATP Tennis Masters Series at Indian Wells, California, on Friday.

The Indian ace and his Czech Republic partner lost 3-6, 6-7(6) to the third seeds Bob Bryan and Mike Bryan of the United States.

Earlier on Thursday, the Indo-Czech pair had upset top seeds Mark Knowles of Bahamas and Daniel Nestor of Canada 6-4, 7-6(4) in their quarter-final match.

Knowles and Nestor had won the Abierto Mexicano de Tenis tournament, in Acapulco, Mexico, in the last week of February and were named 'team of the month' in February.

In the other semi-final, Wayne Ferreira of South Africa and Yevgeny Kafelnikov of Russia upset second seeds Jonas Bjorkman of Sweeden and Todd Woodbridge of Australia 5-7, 6-3, 7-5 to enter the final.