After Syed Fazaluddin went down in straight sets to Vadim Kutsenko in the first singles, Bhupathi, like he has done for the last two days, stepped in to play the hero in yet another Indian comeback win. He stubbed out Oleg Ogorodov in straight sets 7-6 (4), 6-4, before joining Fazaluddin to clinch the deciding soubles 6-3, 7-6(4).

And, for the time that he was on court, Paes, the original Indian showman, was quickly forgotten. Revelling in his new-found role of savior, an animated Bhupathi played to the gallery like he never used to, and did his confidence a world of good before flying to Bangkok for the Asian Games.

And, the robotic Ogorodov, who probably thought this was just another assembly line job, bargained neither for the sort of emotion that Bhupathi fuelled on the courtside today nor the atrocious line umpiring on offer.

Broken for thefirst time in the seventh game, Bhupati let Ogorodov off the hook to find himself staring down a 3-5 problem. But then, the three aces that he bludgeoned shook up Ogorodov nicely and took the set into a tie-break.

Despite running into all sorts of trouble with his usually well-behaving backhand, Bhupathi managed to pull off the set before allowing Ogorodov to pick up three games in row in the second. But again, from 0-3 down, Bhupathi played out of his head to take the set 6-4.

Earlier, Syed Fazaluddin, after three days of a occupying a ringside seat, was sent in for the first singles instead of Srinath. And he did quite a good job of it, considering that it's his first singles match of the tournament. But for that break in the very first game of the first set, the match may have been closer shave. In any case, that Kutsenko showed the first sign of emotion today said enough about Fazal's game. The Uzbek wrapped it up at 6-3, 6-3.

Results: India bt Uzbekistan 2-1 (Vadim Kutsenko bt SyedFazaluddin 6-3, 6-3; Mahesh Bhupathi bt Oleg Ogorodov 7-6 (4), 6-4; Mahesh Bhupathi/Syed Fazaluddin bt Vadim Kutsenko/Oleg Ogorodov 6-3, 7-6(4)).