Amritrajs crash out

Anand Amritraj was a good man to be around as his son Stephan and nephew Prakash slugged it out — and eventually lost 2-6, 7-5, 4-6 &#1...

Anand Amritraj was a good man to be around as his son Stephan and nephew Prakash slugged it out — and eventually lost 2-6, 7-5, 4-6 — against German Karsten Braasch and Swede Robert Lindstedt in the first round of the Chennai Open doubles event today. ‘‘I would give them a spanking first, and then a pat,’’ Anand said.

As the match neared its end, Anand said, ‘‘They’ve played them before. They should have known what to do’’, as the passionate Nungambakkam Stadium crowd got behind the two Amritrajs. For their part, the young duo swung between awesome and awful. It was, for example, awesome as they went into a 4-1 lead in the decider. After that, it was the other extreme.

The Amritraj cousins conceded the first set and then trailed 3-4 in the second. Till that stage, the tourists were all over the hosts. But from there on — incidentally Anand left courtside to avoid putting pressure on the youngsters at this stage — the Indians were brilliant, right till the point from where they started losing again in the third set.

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It was, in the end, probably just youthful exuberance that did the Indians in. Both Prakash and Stephan rushed for the kill and committed unforced errors in their over-eagerness. Add to that the inconsistency in their serving, and Braasch-Lindstedt were deserving winners.

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In a late match, top seeds Mahesh Bhupathi and Jonas Bjorkman of Sweden — who lost his singles game earlier in the day to American Justin Gimelstob — beat Czech Michal Tabara and Spaniard Santiago Ventura 3-6, 6-4, 6-4 in their first round match.

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