Bhupathi-Ancic pair crashes out of St Petersburg Open

St Petersburg, Oct 27 (UNI) Mahesh Bhupathi and his Croatian partner Mario Ancic crashed out of the St Petersburg Open with a 6-2, 6-7, 3-10 loss to the Austrian-South African pair of John Stephens and Wesley Moodie in the quarterfinal here.

The Indo-Croatian pair, who had stunned third seeds Jonas Bjorkman and Thomas Johansson in the first round, lost the plot after winning the opening set to bow out of the one million dollar indoor event.

Bhupathi and Ancic got off to a great start and hardly put a foot wrong as they clinched the opener. However, the Indo-Czech were in for a surprise in the second set as Stephens and Moodie made a strong comeback to equalise.

The match went into the tie-breaker and Bhupathi and Ancic failed to raise their game under pressure to crash out of the tournament.

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