Did Lee-Hesh blow their medal hopes by staying apart?

Sadly, it seems that Paes and Bhupathi relied too much on their magic and big-match experience and too little on the more technical aspect of playing doubles: re-discovering their on-court understanding.

Compare them with Nicolas Kiefer and Rainer Schuettler, the German pair who beat them in the semis. They are both well-known singles players who gave up the lucrative singles tour six months before the Games to play nine tournaments (20 matches) before the Games.

That showed on court, as they had the better understanding and communication.

Lee and Hesh teamed up for just two meets — Toronto and Cincinnati — preferring to pursue their separate careers. At Athens, it initially didn’t appear to matter. The Indians first dumped out USA (Andy Roddick-Mardy Fish) and then Switzerland (Roger Federer-Yves Allegro). The two wins were sheer magic, considering they were in the tougher half of the draw. The chest-butts were working. Kiefer-Schuettler would be easy now.

Once they lost, the questions followed: Why couldn’t their experience take them through? Shouldn’t they have won hands down?

A few years ago, in their prime, the answer to both would have ‘yes’. Today, as a team, they are as makeshift as most other pairs in the competition. They still have the same touch, but what exposed the pair was their lack of match practice.

If doubles is all about rhythm and coordination, playing together for long periods is the only way through. Unfortunately, Paes-Bhupathi could squeeze in just seven matches in their build-up, while the Germans had 16, the Swiss pair 14 and the Americans — concentrating mainly on singles — four.

You can argue that the Croatian pair of Mario Ancic and Ivan Ljubicic were a scratch combination with the occasional Davis Cup ties and three matches at the French Open together. But they had age on their side — Ancic is 20, Ljubicic 24 — and that was the edge as the deciding set went into the 30th game. Their consistent 200 kmph serves and 60 per cent service success was due largely to their youth and stamina. Once upon a time, Lee-Hesh would have rode those serves on sheer willpower and the prescient understanding. On Friday, and the day before, it wasn’t enough.