Bopanna falters in Mumbai doubles final

For the second year in a row, Rohan Bopanna was at the losing end of the Kingfisher Airlines Open doubles final.

He and Pakistan's Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi went down fighting 6-7 (3), 6-7(5) to third seeds Robert Lindstedt of Sweden and Jarkko Nieminen of Finland in Mumbai on Sunday night.

In the end, the Scandinavian duo proved just too good in the tie-breakers.

For the Indo-Pak pair, this was their first ATP tournament together. The loss shouldn't bog them down too much - after all they won four Challenger titles on the trot in July and August.

Bopanna, 27, had also made the final at Mumbai last year with Mustafa Ghouse only to lose to doubles specialist Mahesh Bhupathi and Croatia's Mario Ancic.

While Bhupathi withdrew with a bad back this year, there was no news of India's number 1 doubles player Leander Paes.