Indian doubles pair of Yuki Bhambri and Saketh Myneni put up a valiant fight before going down to Alejandro Davidovich Fokina of Spain and Adrian Mannarino of France in a three-setter to crash out of the Wimbledon first round, here on Sunday.
After a subdued opening set, Bhambri and Myneni were at their best and broke the Spanish-French pair in the 10th game to bring the match on an even keel but they could not capitalise to eventually go down 4-6 6-4 4-6 in a two-hour battle.
Indian challenge in mixed doubles ended after the sixth-seeded Rohan Bopanna and Gabriela Dabrowski were knocked out by 2019 Wimbledon champions Ivan Dodig and Latisha Chan 7-6 (5), 3-6, 4-6.
The Indo-Canadian pair, who won the French Open in 2017, took the opening set after winning the tie-breaker in a 53-minute battle.
Bopanna and Dabrowski broke the Croat-Taiwanese duo in the second and fourth games to lead 4-2. But Dodig and Chan bounced back to break Bopanna and Dabrowski in the seventh game before levelling it 6-all to force a tie-breaker.
But what followed was a heartbreak for the 43-year-old Indian playing in his final season.
The second set was a straight forward case for Dodig and Chan who broke Bopanna and Dabrowski in the eighth game before winning it in 36 minutes.
Dodig and Chan held on to the momentum and raced to 4-2 lead after breaking the third game and wrapped it up in the 10th game.
Bopanna, who is the top-ranked Indian doubles player, has kept his hopes alive in the men’s doubles with his Australian partner Matthew Ebden.
The sixth-seeded Indo-Australian duo will take on unseeded British pair Jacob Fearnley and Johannus Monday in the second round.
Dhamne advances in boys’ singles
Young Indian Manas Dhamne moved into the second round of the boys singles with an easy straight-set victory over 47th ranked 16-year-old from Australia Hayden Jones.
Dhamne, 15, defeated his opponent 6-2 6-4 in one hour, 13 minutes and may run into top seed and world number two Juan Carlos Prado Angelo from Bolivia.
Dhamne, who trains at Piatti Tennis Centre in Italy, had earlier beaten Vuk Radjenovic of Serbia 6-3 6-2 in the first round of qualifying before overcoming a tough three-setter against Atakan Karahan of Turkey, the 10th seed.
This is the second junior Grand Slam appearance of the season for Dhamne, who had competed at the Australian Open where he had retired in the second round.
Dhamne committed fewer unforced errors — 17 to his opponent’s 34 — and won 88 per cent of his points on first serve to defeat his higher-ranked Australian opponent with ease.
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