Somdev Devvarman moved one step ahead in his quest of making the main draw of the Australian Open, overcoming a fighting Prakash Amritraj in the first round of the qualifying event in Melbourne on Wednesday.
Mahesh Bhupathi was the lone Indian surviving in the doubles event of the US$ 450,000 ATP Chennai Open along with his Bahamian partner Mark Knowles as second seed duo of Leander Paes and Lukas Dlouhy were shocked in the first round in Chennai on Thursday. The top seeded pair of Bhupathi and Knowles advanced to the quarter-finals after a hard fought 7-6(3), 7-6(8) win over wild card entrants Somdev Devvarman and Prakash Amritraj.
Indian Davis Cupper Prakash Amirtraj remained a pedestrian yet another time as he lost his first-round match to higher rated and fifth-seed Rainer Schuettler of Germany 2-6, 6-4, 1-6 in 85 minutes, even as Rohan Bopanna made his passage to the main draw after winning his final qualifying match in the $ 450,000 ATP Chennai Open on Monday night.
The doubles ace said that Rohan Bopanna, Prakash Amritraj and he will not play against Japan if Leander Paes is continued as captain.
Veteran doubles specialist Mahesh Bhupathi made a comeback for national duty as a five-member Indian team for the Asia-Oceania Davis Cup tie against Uzbekistan was announced in New Delhi on Tuesday.
Somdev Devvarman qualified for the ATP LA Open with a straight set win over American Alex Bogomolov Jr. but it was all over for Prakash Amritraj, who stumbled at the final hurdle. Second seed Somdev battled for one hour and 38 minutes to score a 7-5, 6-2 win over his sixth seed rival in the third and final qualifying round.
Rohan Bopanna and his Pakistani partner Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi crashed out of the euro 42,500 ATP Challenger series tournament in Aachen, Germany, after losing a tough quarter-final to the German pair of Andreas Beck and Philipp Petzschner. The Indo-Pakistani duo won the first set but then lost their way as the Germans won 5-7, 6-4, 13-11 to advance to the semi-finals of the tournament.
India's Somdev Devvarman and his Australian partner Nathan Healey stretched their impressive run in the US $ 50,000 Calabasas Challenger event, advancing to the semi-finals after beating Prakash Amritraj and Alex Kuznetsov in California. Somdev and Healey, who entered the event as qualifiers, beat the Indo-American pair 6-4, 4-6, 10-7 in the quarter-finals.
Harsh Mankad and Ashutosh Singh beat the top three seeds en route to victory at the US $ 50,000 ATP Challenger in New Delhi to become the first Indian team in almost two years to win a Challenger title.
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Somdev Devvarman expresses confidence of a good showing ahead of India's Davis Cup match against Romania.
Mahesh Bhupathi on Thursday tipped Prakash Amritraj and new kid on the block Somdev Devvarman as ideal players for India's upcoming Davis Cup tie in Romania.
Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi took India to the World Group play-offs as they won the doubles encounter against Japan and clinch the Asia Oceania round II tie 3-0 in New Delhi on Saturday. India's top singles players Rohan Bopanna and Prakash Amritraj had come through tough five-setters on Friday.
Shunning all the injury worries, India's Rohan Bopanna will play the opening match against Japan's No 1 player Kei Nishikori in the Asia-Oceania Davis Cup tie, in New Delhi, from April 11 to 13. India's top player Prakash Amritraj will take on Go Soeda in the second singles, after the visitors went with the rankings and left out their most experienced Davis Cupper Takao Suzuki from the singles line-up.
Four members of the Davis Cup team have written to the AITA saying they will not play under captain Leander Paes.
The youngster faces Uzbekistan's Denis Istomin, while Rohan Bopanna will play Farrukh Dustov in the Asia Oceania Zone Group I tie.
Top seeds Rohan Bopanna and Aisam Qureshi bowed out of the US $50,000 ATP Challenger Series in New Delhi after losing 2-6, 3-6 in the first round to the unseeded combination of Prakash Amritraj and Rajeev Ram at the DLTA.
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The start of the third day of the Asia Oceania Davis Cup round two tie between India and Japan has been delayed due to light showers in New Delhi on Sunday. Play will start at 1030 IST, the organisers said. Having already sealed the tie 3-0 on Saturday, India will field veteran doubles duo Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi in the reverse singles.
Doubles specialists Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi will play the revese singles in the Asia-Oceanic Davis Cup tie against Japan on Sunday. This was necessitated after Rohan Bopanna and Prakash Amritraj, who had put India 2-0 up on the first day of the tie, submitted medical certificates stating that they are unwell and will not be able to play the reverse singles.
Rafael Nadal shrugged off a bout of jet-leg to beat Nicolas Kiefer before David Ferrer outpunched Philipp Kohlschreiber to give Spain a 2-0 lead over Germany on day one of their Davis Cup quarter-final. Nadal won 7-6, 6-0, 6-3 while Ferrer rallied aftewr losing the first set to win 6-7, 6-3, 6-4, 6-2.
India's Davis Cup captain Leander Paes denied having said that partnering Mahesh Bhupathi was the "worst decision" of his career and that it would be "utterly silly" to make a comment like that. "The context of the answer was that I regret having slowed down my singles career," Paes told reporters in New Delhi on Friday, after Rohan Bopanna and Prakash Amritraj had scripted heroic five-sets win to give India a 2-0 lead on the first day of the Davis Cup tie against Japan.
With their number one player Prakash Amritraj sitting pretty, the toss up will be between Bopanna and Mankad when India decides on the final two for the Davis Cup tie against Japan on Friday.
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In a match that sowed the seeds of dissention in the Indian team, Pakistan's Aqeel Khan thinks he would have always liked to play the fifth rubber against Leander Paes in the Davis Cup Asia Oceania relegation play-off tie in Mumbai in April 2006.
Russia benefited from Novak Djokovic's misfortune to sneak into the quarter-finals of the Davis Cup on Sunday. The Serbian, who had been suffering from flu symptoms over the past week, was leading Nikolay Davydenko 6-4, 6-3, 4-6 in the first reverse singles when he abruptly retired to hand Russia an unbeatable 3-1 lead in the first-round tie in Moscow.
Mahesh Bhupathi and Rohan Bopanna beat Denis Istomin and Farrukh Dustov in the Group 1 Asia/Oceania Davis Cup match.
India's non-playing captain Leander Paes on Friday took Prakash Amritraj to task for claiming to the media that he was fully fit for Friday's Davis Cup singles tie against Uzbekistan.
A key player in India's Davis Cup tie against Uzbekistan, Prakash Amritraj on Wednesday allayed fears of his under preparedness owing to a stomach ailment and said he was fit and confident to take the courts on Friday.
All the remaining four players lost their second round matches in the qualifying event of the Chennai Open.
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Rohan Bopanna and Aisam Qureshi edged out second seeds Sanchai and Sonchat Ratiwatana in the match tie-break to enter the final of the Malaysia Open.
Shokeen conceded his second round match to Chinese Taipei's Tsung-Hua Yang, while Kannan went down fighting to Brazil's Guilherme Ochiai in the ITF Futures tournament in Dehradun.
The US-based Indian player lost 4-6, 4-6 to China's Zi Yan in the final qualifying round of the US Open.
The Indo-Paki pair overcame a tough challenge from Olivier Charroin and Thomas Oger of France in the quarter-finals of the Nottingham Challenger.
Vivek Shokeen and Somdev Dev Varman were named in the team to face Uzbekistan the Asia-Oceania Group 1 first round away tie.
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The top seed was taken the distance by Navdeep Singh before making the semi-finals in the Delhi ITF Futures tournament.
The top seed was extended by Aditya Madkekar in the pre-quarter-finals of the ITF Futures Men's Tennis Tournament in Delhi.