Stephen Amritraj, Mustafa Ghouse pair up for Europe summer

Stephen Amritraj, the lesser-known Amritraj in contemporary tennis, is partnering Mustafa Ghouse in doubles events for the rest of the European summer.

While the Indian contingent (Leander Paes, Mahesh Bhupathi, Sania Mirza and Sunitha Rao) start their Olympic campaign on August 11, Stephen and Mustafa will be pairing up at a challenger in Istanbul and then playing the Italy challengers in Manerbio and Como the following weeks.

"Musty and I are pretty much best friends and have a lot in common including good results together. We believe that the way to do it is to stick with one partner so we have given it this summer in Europe together," Amritraj told the Indian Tennis Blog.

Last month, he reached the doubles semifinals of Challenger tournaments at Rimini (with Mustafa Ghouse) and Medjugorje (with Matwe Middelkoop).

Getting good results in doubles means Stephen ends up missing singles qualifiers for the following week's events, thus forcing him to put his singles career on the backburner.

"I want to play singles when I can, but it isn't my top priority right now just because of goals and financial status," the 24-year-old said.

While cousin Prakash is currently India's highest-ranked tennis player, Stephen is ranked a lowly 1622 (as on July 28) in singles. But he's ranked 285 in doubles, 44 rungs short of a career-high he achieved in November 2007.

Last year, Stephen won four doubles trophies -- at the Kaohsiung challenger in Taiwan and three Futures events. At the very least, he'll have to match that performance to move into the Top 200.

It won't be easy, considering Stephen is yet to salvage his career from a clutch of injuries sustained over the years.

On February 16, 2003, while still a student at Duke University, Amritraj injured his knee while playing Mark Henderson. Rehabilitation after surgery forced him off the courts for three months.

Two years later, during his last match at college, Stephen tore ligaments in his knee. The result -- more time spent at the hospital.

"I have had three surgeries on my knees...and this has hampered my movement on slippery surfaces and has hurt in long, grinding matches," Amritraj said.

In May this year, just before the Carson challenger in the US, Stephen took a fall and broke it with his left hand, injuring his wrist.

"Basically played a whole month with just a one-handed chip backhand. I took a cortisone shot and went to Europe but after eight weeks, it's worn off so I have needed rest and therapy from time to time," he said.

That's also one of the reasons he won't be playing anywhere the coming week.

Amritraj, who grew up in the Californian city of Calabasas, is skipping both the challenger events in New Delhi, a decision he arrived at after changing his mind "at least four times each week".

"(I was) pretty much expecting to win both and nothing less, especially the second one because no one will stick around for doubles and my record last year against other Indians was something like 27-3."

After losing their opening match at the Graz challenger in Austria, Stephen and Mustafa opted to take a fortnight off before they rejoin the Tour in Istanbul.

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Karan Rastogi back in action at Delhi Challenger

Karan Rastogi, India's number three tennis player, is all set to make a comeback at an ATP Challenger tournament in New Delhi next month.

Rastogi, sidelined with a back injury during the ATP Mumbai Open in September, told the Indian Tennis blog that his back was better and he planned to play both the hardcourt challenger events in the Indian capital at the end of 2007.

The 21-year-old Mumbai resident, currently ranked 344 in the world, had won the Morocco F5 claycourt Futures in July this year.

News of Rastogi's comeback should please fans of Indian tennis, which has seen many of its stars fall prey to injury this year.

Sania Mirza finished her season early while Prakash Amritraj, Harsh Mankad and Mahesh Bhupathi are also recovering from injuries. With Sunitha Rao withdrawing from two consecutive Challenger tournaments in the US this month, speculation about another injury scare were rife.

Rohan Bopanna and Leander Paes have also not played since the Stockholm Open and the Madrid Masters earlier this month.

With the country's top players taking a break from tennis courts, the India F10 Futures in Gulbarga got more than its share of attention.

But India's second-string players, with the exception of world number 605 Sunil Kumar Sipaeya, failed to make it beyond the second round in the singles. Eighth seed Sipaeya lost to eventual champion Ivan Cerovic of Croatia in the quarter-finals.

There was better luck for India in the doubles with the second-seeded pair of Vijay Kannan and Kazakhstan's Alexey Kedryuk beating Tushar Liberhan and Rupesh Roy 6-4,3-6,10-3 in the final of the $15,000+ hardcourt tournament.

Across the border, sixth seed Ashwin Vijayragavan justified his seeding by making it to the singles quarterfinals of the Islamabad Futures. Pairing up with Korean Jeong-Han, Vijayragavan lost to home crowd favourites Aqeel Khan and Asim Shafik in a closely fought doubles semifinal 6-2,4-6,9-11.

Other Indians had little success abroad. Mustafa Ghouse lost in the singles qualifiers of the ATP Seoul Challenger before he and Israel's Dudi Sela bowed out in the opening round of the doubles event.

World number 728 Prerana Appineni also lost her opening singles and doubles encounters at the ITF tournament in Valencia, Venezuela. Down under in Traralgon (Australia), world number 359 Tara Iyer lost her singles opener and then forfeited her doubles quarterfinal match.

The action now shifts to the Pakistan F2 Futures grasscourt tournament in Lahore starting on Monday where a host of Indian players, led by Sipaeya, are in the fray.

Mustafa Ghouse loses in semis of Ethias Trophy Challenger

The dream run of doubles specialist Mustafa Ghouse at the Ethias Trophy Challenger in Mons, Belgium ended with a semifinal defeat to an unheralded European duo.

Ghouse and his Australian partner Alun Jones went down fighting 6-7(7),6-2,10-6 to Poland's Tomasz Bednarek and Slovakia's Filip Polasek at the indoor event.

Ghouse, currently ranked 218 in the ATP doubles rankings and fourth in India, had achieved his highest career ranking of 131 in August this year and his performance at the Mons tournament is likely to see him back in the top 200.

Ghouse and Jones had beaten top seeds Yves Allegro of Switzerland and Kristof Vliegen of Belgium in the quarterfinals - by an impressive 6-3, 6-3 scoreline.

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.

Mumbai misses Indians at Kingfisher Open

It took four rain-hit days to complete first round matches at the Kingfisher Airlines Tennis Open but when the roll call was taken, no Indians were left in the singles draw.

There's not going to be any consolation from doubles either. Mahesh Bhupathi, who claimed the inaugural title in 2006 with Mario Ancic, pulled out before his opening round doubles match with what appears to be a bad back.

Wildcard Rohan Bopanna, at 244 the highest ranked Indian in singles, was our best hope and he almost made it. But it was Frenchman Nicolas Devilder who prevailed 3-6, 6-3, 7-6 (11-9) after saving three matchpoints.

NCAA champion Somdev Dev Varman, the other Indian wildcard in the draw, actually led 5-4 in the second set against Italian Fabio Fognini but had to settle for a 3-6, 6-7(8-10) loss at the $416,000 ATP event.

In a battle of qualifiers, Navdeep Singh couldn't find anything to break Toshihide Matsui's rhythm and lost 4-6, 6-7(6-8) to the Japanese player.

And lucky loser Purav Raja couldn't make much of a second chance, falling 4-6, 1-6 to Spain's Ivan Navarro.

Raja and Vivek Shokeen are playing doubles too, but as last-minute replacements for Bhupathi and France's Fabrice Santoro and no miracles are expected from them.

Last year's surprise finalists Bopanna and Ghouse also survive in the doubles event though with different partners - Bopanna with Pakistan's Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi and Ghouse with Karan Rastogi.

But the question on everybody's minds is the whereabouts of Leander Paes. The doubles specialist skipped the Mumbai event apparently because of his tiff with Bhupathi. But he and Britain's Jamie Murray are also missing in action at the ATP Bangkok event, where they were supposed to be playing this week.

Update: Ghouse and Rastogi lost to the British pair of James Auckland and Ross Hutchins 2-6, 6-3, 3-10 in a first round match on Centre Court that lasted an hour and 14 minutes.

Update 2: Bopanna and Qureshi have advanced to the doubles semifinals thanks to a walkover over Ivan Navarro of Spain and Sergio Roitman of Argentina. Roitman withdrew with an elbow injury in the quarterfinals.

Raja and Shokeen, the only other Indian pair still in the fray, lost their first round match in straight sets 3-6, 2-6 to the Serbian duo of Boris Pashanski and Victor Troicki.

Will Bopanna and Qureshi win the doubles title?
	Yes - Bopanna was a finalist at ATP Mumbai last year
	No - Luck favoured them so far, not any more
	Can't say - all depends on who they play next
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