US Open – Leander/Dlouhy crash in Round 1

Source – WWW.TENNISJUNCTION.IN

New York: The 3rd seeded duo of Leander Paes and Lukas Dlouhy (CZE) crashed out of the US Open today morning.

The pair of Martin Damm (CZE) and Filip Polasek (Slovakia) overpowered the confident third-seeded pair 6-7(7-9), 6-3, 6-4.

The defending champions were nowhere in the cruising mode throughout the match. They played defensively with Leander serving out the first set in the tie-break winning 7-6 (9-7).

But this loss of set did nothing to lower the Damm-Polasek confidence. They broke the Indo-Czech pair in the 7th game of the second set, eventually winning it 6-3.

The third set had its own flip flops but it was the 10th game that sealed the match for Damm/Polasek. With Dlouhy serving to make it 5-5, they went down 0-30 with the first two points. Fighting back to 30-30, the Czeck-Slovakia pair took their chances to close the game winning two straight points.

This comes as a big heart breaker for India as its No.1 singles player Somdev Devvarman lost to Kevin Anderson in the first round of Men’s singles.

India now has its hopes pinned on Sania Mirza who reached the second round and on the two doubles teams represented by Mahesh Bhupati and Rohan Bopanna. Last year finalist Mahesh Bhupati would want to avenge their last year’s defeat and look to be better prepared this time.