Australian Open Doubles winners expelled in the third round – Wimbledon Championships 2012
Winner of this year’s Australian open Grand Slam Doubles title, Leander Paes of India and Radek Stepanek of Czech Republic, suffered a lethal blow in the third round of the Wimbledon Championships on Tuesday afternoon to fall out of the draw. The fourth seeded tandem was outplayed by the 15th seeded Croatian-Brazilian combination of Ivan Dodig and Marcelo Melo in a taxing five-set match.
Dodig and Melo battled extremely hard for three hours and 42 minutes before settling the final scores at 4-6, 6-3, 6-4, 6-7(2), 8-6 to earn a spot in the quarter-finals of the coveted Grass court event in London, England. It was one of the biggest upsets in the doubles draw, as Paes and Stepanek were rated to win the title at the All England Tennis and Croquet Club this year. They displayed phenomenal tennis in the initial rounds of the tournament so far, winning both of their matches in straight sets, but couldn’t repeat the heroics in the third round brawl against Dodig and Melo.
The 15th seeds coughed eight double faults in the matchup but fired 12 aces to compensate for it very well. Dodig and Melo won 88 out of 115 first serve points in the matchup and converted five out of 12 break points to take the better of the fourth seeded hot favourites. On the other hand, Paes and Stepanek won 96 out of 144 points on their first serve but could barely register three serve breaks in the entire matchup, frittering away five precious opportunities to finish on the losing side in the end.
Paes and Stepanek started off in great fashion and broke their opponents early to get the upper hand in the contest. They held their lead intact for the rest of the set and serve out at 6-4 to get the first major breakthrough of the match.
Tide turned in the very next set when Dodig and Melo came out firing out at the fourth seeded pair and nailed a crucial break point to bag the second set at 6-3. They carried on their winning impetus in the next set as well and overcame the limited resistance from their opponents to reach 6-4.
The tandem of Paes and Stepanek finally made its way back in the match, winning the third set tie-break but two cracking serve breaks in the final set left them stranded. Dodig and Melo won at 8-6 to enter the round of eight.
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