``It were long three-four days for me,'' a visibly tired Paes said. ``We have been on the road for a while now ever since we left Hartford and then I had some work at Mumbai and here. Moreover, it takes time to adjust to the courts here and my energy levels were really low.''

Fortunately, Paes performance did not hurt as much as Prahlad Srinath played two superb sets against Xu Ran 6-2, 6-2 to set Indian firmly on the road to the semi-finals. In fact, it was a daywhen the Indian tennis' megastar's contribution was absolutely minimal as first Srinath and then Fazaluddin did a great job.

He readily agreed to that while paying handsome tributes to both Srinath and Fazaluddin. ``Srinath played a fantastic match and Fazal carried me throughout the doubles and it was a great effort from his part,'' Paes said.Fazal paid back the compliment: ``Leander made me look much better than I am. He helped me a lot and it is not as if I played a great match. It's all because of him,'' he said.

SUNIL IMPRESSES: Meanwhile, Sunil Kumar provided ample evidence of his abundant talent when he took nine straight games off South Korea's Kim Dong Hyun but just could not maintain the momentum, losing the final set 6-0.Paes had beaten Zhu in the Davis Cup Asia-Oceania Group match in April this year very comfortably. Even today he was on his way to breaking the Chinese in the first game and seemed to be on a roll. Things went awry in the beginning of the second set when he dropped serve in thesecond game.A couple of double faults later, it was a rather tired man on court. Zhu grabbed the chances and was on fire, breaking Paes at will to take the match to the decider.

Zhu had the trainer attending to him for an ankle injury but that did not, in any way, take the fight out of him. Paes had little energy left in him and was involved in a long struggle trying to get his serves, returns and volleys in place.

Serving to stay in the match in the eighth game of the third set, Paes let go a 40-15 advantage to lose the game and the match. It seemed he was rather relieved to go off court.

That was in sharp contrast to Srinath's free-flowing game in the first singles. He was hardly troubled by Xu and what was really heartening was his game from the back of the court, where the backhand to the flanks really stood out. For sure, he is a confident man after his good showing in the recently concluded Indian Satellites where he picked up 35 points.

Xu, on the other hand, did not match the Indian's effortas Srinath moved him around to set up the points. The third-ranked Indian stamped his class very early, when his backhand down the line in the fifth game of the first set got him the first break of the match.

Fazaluddin, on his part, took a huge load off his senior partner with his crosscourt returns and seemed quite inspired despite a flat Paes besides him.

Results
Quarterfinals: India bt China 2-1 (Prahlad Srinath bt Xu Ran 6-2 6-2; Leander Paes lost to Zhu Ben-Qiang 6-4 2-6 2-6; Paes/ Syed Fazaluddin bt Xu Ran/ Jiang Shan 6-3 6-3)
Placings: Korea bt India A: Kim Dong Hyun b Sunil Kumar 3-6 6-4 6-0; Baek Seung Bok bt Vijay Kannan 6-7 (1) 7-6 (5) 6-1; Kim Dong-Hyun/ Seung-Jun Lee bt Vishal Uppal/ Mustafa Ghouse 7-6 (3) 6-4.