Paes-Bhupathi lose

Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi lost their concluding league match in the World doubles tennis championship on Friday. They were beaten by Alex O'Brien and Jared Palmer 6-2, 4-6, 6-7 (5-7) in an engrossing contest that lasted 2 hours and 23 minutes.

Despite the defeat the Indians made it to the Saturday's semi-finals, where they will play Ellis Ferreira of South Africa and Rick Leach of the United States who, in an earlier match, got the better of Josh Eagle and Andrew Florent of Australia 4-6, 6-3, 6-7(7-2) to register their first victory from three matches and squeeze in the last four by finishing second in the Red Group.

"Looking at the big picture, we're in a happy spot," said Paes after the defeat. "Once we qualified, today was incidental, but we can't afford to slacken off from now on. We have to play our A game and fire on all cylinders."

Simon Aspelin and Johan Landsberg of Sweden, who beat Jaime Oncins of Brazil and Daniel Orsanic of Argentina 6-2, 6-4 in their last gorup match, finished on top of the Red Group unbeaten and with full points.

Aspelin and Landsberg will take on Donald Johnson of the United States and Piet Norval of South Africa. The pair beat Paul Haarhuis of the Netherlands and Sandon Stole of Australia in the last match of the day 6-2, 7-6 (8-6) to take the second place in the Gold Group behind Paes and Bhupathi and with it a place in the semi-finals..

"I think the key to the tournament is that we came in with no expectations," said Landsberg. "We just came here to have a good time. The first time we played this week, we went in and were really relaxed, that's why we played so well.

"This is the biggest tournament we've ever played. At the beginning of the year we never thought we'd be here playing in the semifinals of the Championships."

The top seeded pair of Leach and Ferreira made the semi-finals on better set average after notching up their first win in three matches.

The Afro-American pair, facing an early exit after two reverses in the league phase, progressed to the next stage thanks to an outside chance provided by Jaime Oncins (Brazil) and Daneil Orasanic (Argentina), who lost in straight sets to the Swedish pair of Simon Aspelin and Johan Landsperg despite going into their match needing only a set to move into the semi-finals.

Leach and Ferreira made the grade on a better set score of 4-3 over the South American combine after rallying to defeat Australian duo of Eagle and Florent.

Watching the Swedes coast to victory, Leach remarked: "The whole year has been a blur for me and even this week. I thought I am not going to retire on a good note. Strange things can happen in tennis and I am the luckiest man today."

On his chances of making it to the final, Leach said: "In fact I had my tickets waitlisted from here to Singapore, from where I was to reach Los Angles. I have not thought about it. In fact, we do not deserve to be in the semi-finals for our performance in the first two matches."

He added: "I will be happier to play Leander and Mahesh in the semi-finals or finals. I would prefer to end my doubles career in the manner as the crowd will also be fair and support us."

Leach informed he would be taking up a job of assistant coach in the University of California from next season.

"I am thrilled to be a coach, especially when I would be coaching Vijay Amritraj's son, who has shown lot of potential and is to play in the Davis Cup for India."