Paes-Melzer crash out of French Open doubles

India’s Leander Paes and Austrian Jurgen Melzer crashed out in the 2^nd round of the French Open. In a hard fought contest, the 9^th seeded duo lost to the Uruguayan-Argentine pair of Pablo Ceuvas and Horacio Zeballos in 3 sets, 5-7 6-4 7-6 (8-6).

The first set started with the Indo-Austrian duo exchanging break of serves with their opponents. The first set was on serve until Paes-Melzer, having a 6-5 lead, broke their opponents and took the first set. In the second set, Ceuvas-Zeballos broke Paes-Melzer early and maintained their advantage throughout the set to take the second set, 6-4. The decisive set was neck and neck with each team trying to break and gain a decisive lead in the match. Leading 6-5, the Indo-Austrian pair had 3 match points but the 9^th seeds were denied on all 3 occasions as the set moved to a tie-break. They also had a 4^th match point saved during the tie-break on their own serve at 6-5.

However, in the end, the unseeded pair converted the first match point that they had to wrap up the match and move to the third round.They will now play 6th seeds Aisam ul Haq Qureshi and Jean Julien Roger in the next round.

Leander Paes, along with Jelena Jankovic, will start his mixed doubles campaign later today against Daniele Bracciali and Galina Voskoboeva.