Paes-Stepanek out of Indian Wells

Indian Wells (USA): India`s Leander Paes and his Czech partner Radek Stepanek`s campaign in the BNP Paribas Open tennis tournament came to an end after they lost 6-3 7-6(5) to Spain`s Rafael Nadal and Marc Lopez here. The Indo-Czech pair had come to this match after defeating Juan Monaco and Kei Nishikori in the previous round Wednesday.

The Spanish pair took one hour and 43 minutes to knock out the Australian Open men`s doubles winners. Paes and Stepanek were poor on serve as they won just six points from their second serve, giving away 10 break points to the unseeded duo. Rohan Bopanna and Mahesh Bhupathi were earlier knocked out in the first round.