It was a day to forget for Indian tennis as Somdev Devvarman, Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi were all knocked out of the ATP Miami Masters here, losing their respective singles and doubles matches.
Somdev went down 6-2, 6-4 to two-time defending champion and World No.1 Novak Djokovic in just 68 minutes in their third-round clash Sunday night.
Paes and his French partner Michael Llodra were ousted by Grigor Dimitrov and Frederik Nielsen 7-6(6), 7-6(4) while Mahesh Bhupathi and his Canadian teammate Daniel Nestor were knocked out by Nicolas Almagro and Oliver Marach 6-3, 6-3 in second round matches.
In windy conditions, Djokovic won 28 of his 31 first serves and faced just one break point in the entire match against World No.254 Somdev.
“It was very difficult to kind of get into a rhythm because you couldn't really serve at 100 percent and you had to go more for precision and put twice as much effort into the step adjustments because of the windy conditions,” Djokovic was quoted as saying in the ATP website.
“All in all, I'm just happy to get through the rough day.” Djokovic will now face Tommy Haas of Germany in the fourth round.
“He (Hass) is very talented and he's probably one of the most experienced active players in the world now,” Djokovic said. “He can play equally well on any surface. Today (with) windy conditions, I watched his match. He played terrific and so, you can always expect Tommy to fight and try his best.”
India's only participant left here is Rohan Bopanna, who with his American partner Rajeev Ram will take on second seeds Marcel Granollers and Marc Lopez of Spain in the second round.