Indian tennis ace Mahesh Bhupathi returned to winning ways ahead of the Australian Open, clinching an ATP Tour doubles title with France's Fabrice Santoro in Auckland, New Zealand, on Saturday.
The top seeded Indo-French pair defeated Jiri Novak and Radek Stepanek of the Czech Republic 4-6, 6-3, 7-5 in the final.
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Bhupathi and Santoro had earlier defeated Jean Michael Gambill and Brian MacPhie 7-6 (7/1), 6-1, and Jared Palmer and Pavel Vizner 6-1, 6-2, in the semi-finals and quarter-finals respectively.
It was the 32nd career title for Bhupathi, who lost in the first round at the ATP event in Chennai after striking an ad-hoc partnership with Russian Dmitry Tursunov.
Bhupathi is expected to revert to his regular partner Max Mirnyi of Belarus at the Australian Open, beginning Monday.
The Australian Open is the only Grand Slam crown that is missing from Bhupathi's showcase, which is decked with two French Open crowns (1999 and 2001 with Paes), and a Wimbledon (1999 with Paes), and US Open (2002 with Mirnyi) title besides a mixed doubles trophy each at the three said events with various partners in 1997, 2002 and 1999 respectively.
Meanwhile, Prakash Amritraj had the agony of missing the cut for the Australian Open men's qualifying draw by a rank.
Amritraj's new year ranking on the ATP list placed him at 280 while the qualifying draw for the year's first Grand Slam closed at 279.
Unfortunately for the Indian, all the entries turned up for the matches at Melbourne, meaning his hopes of entering the field as lucky loser did not materialize.
