Paris: Mahesh Bhupathi and Leander Paes, along with their respective partners, lost the second-round matches of the doubles event to end India's challenge in the ATP Paris Masters tennis tournament here.Seeded third in the tournament, Bhupathi and Mark Knowles of Bahamas went down 4-6, 7-6 (6), 7-10 to the unseeded pair of Simon Aspelin and Paul Hanley in a hard-fought encounter yesterday.

Meanwhile, the fourth seeded duo of Paes and Czech Republic's Lukas Dlouhy squandered a set lead to lose 7-6 (5), 4-6, 5-10 to the unseeded Australian-American pair of Jordan Kerr and Travis Parrott in the euro 2,750,000 event.Paes and Dlouhy were stressed to the limit in the opening set itself, before saving five break points to take away the tie-breaker.

But the duo had to face tough times in the second set and lost their serve once.The Indo-Czech pair failed to convert the only break point they secured, only to concede Kerr and Parrott to make it 1-1 before they wrapped it in their favour in the super tie-breaker.

Whereas, Bhupathi and Knowles clawed back from a set down but couldn't hold their dominance for long as Aspelin and Hanley kept their cool in the super tie-breaker to advance to the last eight-stage.