The top seed, winner of the first-leg in Mumbai and runner-up in the second-leg at Hyderabad, was favoured to clinch the third-leg. But Slovakia's Marian Leysek did not let opportunity to go by. He plotted the downfall of the top seed to a nicety.

``I knew that Srinath was not in the best of health. This was the best chance to pull the rug from under his feet. I had seen him in the first two legs and knew his game. So I was well prepared for this,'' said an elated Leysek after the match.

Srinath, who was running temperature and was in a dehydrated state in Hyderabad during the closing stages of that leg, was far from his best on the day. His serving let him down repeatedly. Even his backhand drives, his strong point, lacked in the depth and power he is known for.

Srinath dropped serve in the fourth and sixth games of the first setwhere he was routed 1-6. The Karnataka player was broken in the first game of the second set, but recovered to return the compliment in the next. For a while, it looked like Srinath would hold his own in the second set and push the match into three sets. But in the ninth game, he faltered with his service to again lose ground. He served two double faults in this game to trail 4-5. Leysek held serve in the following to take the set and match 1-6, 6-4.

Results:

Federico Rovai (Sweden) bt Vishal Gupta (India) 6-0, 6-2, Niko Karagiannis (Greece) bt Yasser A Mohammad (India) 7-5, 6-4, Johan Hede (Sweden) bt Rohan Bopanna 6-1, 6-3, Marian Leysek (Slovakia) bt Prahlad Srinath 6-1, 6-4.