and Ram reached two other tournaments finals in the season, in Masters Series events of Indian Wells (def. Nestor/Zimonjić) and Cincinnati (lost to Bryan/Bryan). Sidelined by a recurring elbow injury since the Davis Cup World Group Play-offs against Peru, Erlich did not participate in any event after the US Open. Partnering with different other players in the rest of the season, Ram won two more titles; partnering with Max Mirnyi in Vienna (def. Petzschner/Peya) and in Lyon, and partnering with Michaël Llodra (def. Huss/Hutchins). The fourth and fifth teams selected for the Tennis Masters Cup, on October 19, were the pairing of Mahesh Bhupathi from India and Mark Knowles – one of the two defending champions – from The Bahamas, who secured respectively their eighth and eleventh spots for the season championships, and the then-13th-ranked duo of Pablo Cuevas from Uruguay and Luis Horna from Peru, who qualified as Grand Slam champions certain to finish the year within the Top 20 of the ATP Race rankings, and reached the year-end event for the first time. Mahesh Bhupathi and Mark Knowles started competing together in 2008 with a deep run at the Australian Open, in which they defeated defending champions Bryan/Bryan, before losing in the semifinals (lost to Erlich/Ram). Bhupathi and Knowles exited in the first round of the French Open, where Knowles was the defending champion (lost to Huss/Hutchins), and in Wimbledon (lost to Petzschner/Peya). At the US Open, the pair did not get past the third round (lost to González/Mónaco). Despite the poor season in majors, Bhupathi and Knowles reached five finals in Vienna (lost to Mirnyi/Ram), Madrid (lost to Fyrstenberg/Matkowski), Memphis (def. Ratiwatana/Ratiwatana), Dubai (def. Damm/Vízner), Basel (def. Kas/Kohlschreiber). Pablo Cuevas and Luis Horna did not start their partnership until the French Open, in which they upset four seeded teams (Clément/Llodra; Dlouhý/Paes; Bryan/Bryan; Nestor/Zimonjić) to win their first Grand Slam title, the first ever claimed by a South American team. Cuevas and Horna entered two more tournaments together in the rest of the season, losing in the second round of the US Open (lost to de Voest/Fisher), and the first in Washington (lost to Gicquel/Lindstedt). The pair had more success separately, as Cuevas reached the final in Houston, partnering with Marcel Granollers (lost to Gulbis/Schüttler), and Horna won two titles in Auckland, partnering with Juan Mónaco (def. Malisse/Melzer), and Buenos Aires, partnering with Agustín Calleri (def. Eschauer/Luczak). The