Paes-Bhupathi go down under in five

They survived a matchpoint in a 22-point fourth-set tie-breaker and stood on level terms till the ninth game of the fifth set. Then, in Paes’s words, “Bjorkman hit a couple of great returns, Rafter played a good point at 15-all,” and it was all over.

Bjorkman-Rafter, the fifth seeds, had defeated the top seeds Paes-Bhupathi 6-3 4-6 6-4 6-7 (12-10) 6-4. As Rafter later, “I felt we were a little bit lucky in the end.”

The Indians, Bhupathi in particular, made a nervous beginning. “We were edgy and it showed,” said Paesafterwards. The result was Bhupathi dropped his opening service game. The second of the match, with three errors at the net. It was the first time he had dropped serve since the second round.Paes’s heroics kept the Indians in the match and, suddenly, Bhupathi found his rhythm. And it was his beautifully angled backhand return of serve that saw them break Rafter in the 10th game of the second set and level the match.But Paes’ game cooled off during the third set.He was broken twice, once in the first game, which the Indians got back by breaking Rafter in the fourth, and again in the ninth, with three volleying errors. Bjorkman then held serve the next game and he and Rafter were two sets to one up.

Bjorkman was the key player in the match. He never lost serve and as Paes put it, “his returns made the difference.” The Indian clearly were under pressure while serving to him and in their effort to put in a good ball, often double-faulted. They had a total of 10 (Paes six, Bhupathi four) in the match, comparedto Rafter-Bjorkman’s one. Also, a lot of their volleying errors were induced by Bjorkman’s returns.

In the fourth game, Paes discovered his touch while Bhupathi had hardly put a foot wrong since hitting the winner at set point in the second set. Twice in the set Paes-Bhupathi came close to breaking Rafter. In fact, in the 10th game they had a set point but Rafter hung on.

Then came the dramatic 13-minutes tie-breaker, in which Paes-Bhupathi had four set points and faced one matchpoint — saved with a good Bhupathi serve — before Rafter volleyed long. The match was level once again, after two hours and 38 minutes.

Paes-Bhupathi should have had the initiative here. But the crowd raised the level of its support and Rafter raised the level of his game. All four players held serve comfortably till the 10th game, and then when he had to hold serve to stay in the match, Paes was broken. It was the end of a great performance by the Indian pair.