India's Leander Paes and David Rikl of the Czech Republic were crushed by Mark Knowles of Bahamas and Daniel Nestor of Canada in straight sets in the the final of the men's doubles at the US Open tennis championships.

The 13th seeded Indo-Czech pair lost to the third seeds 3-6, 3-6.

Paes showed flashes of brilliance, but Rikl played a below par and made dreadful errors at important points.

His struggled with serve and as a result was broken in the first set. Knowles and Nestor held on to that break to win the set 6-3.

Nestor, who was dominant at the net, and Knowles then stepped up another gear in the second set and broke the 13th seeds twice to claim an easy victory.

Leander was broken in the third game while Rikl was broken in the final game as Knowles and Nestor romped home.

Knowles and Nestor earned $400,000 for their win while Paes and Rikl got $200,000

In the semi-finals on Thursday night, Paes and Rikl had beaten Spain's Rafael Nadal and Tommy Robredo 6-3, 6-3 while Knowles and Nestor got the better of the French pair of Julien Benneteau and Nicolas Mahut 7-6 (7/5), 7-6 (7/5).

Paes also tasted defeat in the mixed doubles semi-finals when he and Martina Navratilova went down to Alicia Molik and Todd Woodbridge 6-4, 3-6, 6-7 (3-10).