A serious injury in the calf muscle forced Indian tennis player Mahesh Bhupathi to withdraw from the semi-final round of the French Open mixed doubles event on June 5. This also brought to an end the India challenge on the clay court Grand Slam. Mahesh Bhupathi could not be fit enough to play the French Open mixed doubles event till the last moment.

 

As such, he and his Chinese partner Jie Zheng gave walkover to the top-seeded pair of Slovenia's Katarina Srebotnik and Serbia's Nenad Zimonjic in the last-four stage match. The muscle calf of the Indian tennis star Mahesh Bhupathi had got injured earlier this summer and had got aggravated further while playing in the quarter-final tie on Tuesday,June 3. Experts explain that if Bhupathi had gone on to play the French Open mixed doubles event in this injured state, then it might have cost him his entire summer including the Wimbledon and the Beijing Olympics.

 

Mark Knowles of Bahamas had played alongside Mahesh Bhupathi and lost in the first round of the men's doubles event. On the other hand, another ace Indian tennis player Leander Paes and his Czech partner Lukas Dlouhy went down in the third round. In the first round of the mixed doubles, Leander Paes and Nadia Petrova of Russia had lost to Mahesh Bhupathi and Jie Zheng.