Yuki Bhambri and N Sriram Balaji, India’s only representatives at the grass-court Grand Slam, lost their respective men’s doubles opening round matches as the Indian challenge at the Wimbledon wilted on Thursday.
Yuki Bhambri, the highest-ranked men’s doubles Indian player, and his partner Michael Venus of New Zealand went down 6-3, 6-4 against the Netherlands’ Jean-Julien Rojer and Theodore Winegar of the USA.
The Bhambri-Venus pair was broken in the sixth game of the first set and the seventh of the second as Jean-Julien Rojer, a three-time men’s doubles Grand Slam winner, and Theodore Winegar wrapped up the match in straight sets.
Balaji and Demoliner fall in three sets
Meanwhile, N Sriram Balaji and his partner Marcelo Demoliner of Brazil lost 3-6, 7(7)-6(2), 6-4 to Sander Gille of Belgium and the Netherlands’ Sem Verbeek in two hours and two minutes.
Olympian N Sriram Balaji and Marcelo Demoliner made a bright start, holding serve throughout the opening set before securing the decisive break in the eighth game to take the lead.
The Indo-Brazilian tennis duo continued to serve solidly in the second set, with neither pair conceding a break as the contest went into a tie-break. However, Balaji and Demoliner faltered at the crucial moment, managing just two points in the tie-break as Sander Gille and Sem Verbeek levelled the match to force a decider.
The decider saw Sriram Balaji and Marcelo Demoliner on the back foot from the outset after conceding a break point in the opening game. Sander Gille and Sem Verbeek, the defending mixed doubles Wimbledon champion, then held serve for the rest of the set to complete a come-from-behind victory.
No Indians were a part of either the singles’ or the mixed doubles draws.
