Press Trust of India
Rio de Janeiro, August 6: Leander Paes’s Olympic career came to an inglorious end as he and partner Rohan Bopanna bowed out in the opening round of the men’s doubles, losing in straight sets to the Polish pair of Marcin Matkowski and Lukasz Kubot 4-6, 6-7 (6-8) here Saturday.
At 43, it is highly unlikely that Leander will still be around when the Tokyo Games happen four years later. He certainly would have hoped for a better show. But then it was on the cards as the controversies leading up to the game did not do any good to the pair as there was a distinct lack of on-court chemistry between them.
The duo was broken thrice in the first set even after being a break up. It was the first serve that did dump the Indian pair as their success percentage was a mere 48 during the 32 minutes of the first set.
In the second set, the Indian pair broke the opponents’ serve to make it 6-5 only for Bopanna to lose his serve in the very next game making it 6-6 and taking the set to the tie-breaker. In the tie-breaker also Paes and Bopanna had a 6-5 lead, but then the Polish pair reeled off three points in a row to break Paes’s heart.
Women paddlers lose
Paddlers Mouma Das and Manika Batra made their exit from the Rio Olympics after losing their preliminary round singles matches to higher-ranked rivals in the individual Table Tennis competition here Saturday. Mouma lost to Daniela Dodean Monteiro of Romania 2-11, 7-11, 7-11, 3-11. Debutant Manika, went down to her 60th-ranked Polish rival Katarzyna Franc-Grzybowska 2-4 (12-10, 6-11, 12-14, 11-8, 4-11 12-14) in 48 minutes.
