Dubai: Wild card pairing Novak Djokovic and his hitting partner Carlos Gomez-Herrara suffered a close 7-5, 1-6, 10-5 defeat to Tomasz Bednarek and Lukas Dlouhy in the first round of the men’s doubles at the Dubai Duty Free Men’s Open on Monday.
Bednarek and Dlouhy will now progress to the quarter-finals, where they will face the winner of Tuesday’s first round match between Lukas Rosol and Andreas Seppi and third seeds Mariusz Fyrstenberg and Marcin Matkowski.
Elsewhere, fourth seeds Ivan Dodig and Mikhail Youzhny lost 6-3, 7-5 to Juan Martin del Potro and Radek Stepanek. Del Potro and Stepanek will next play the winners of Julian Knowle and John Peers’ first round clash with Daniel Brands and Florian Mayer in the quarter-finals.
Second seeds Rohan Bopanna and Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi beat Nikolay Davydenko and Victor Hanescu 6-1, 5-7, 10-8 to progress to a quarter-final tie with the winners of Oliver Marach and Florin Mergea’s first round match against Mahesh Bhupathi and Denis Istomin.
In a pick of Tuesday’s action, No. 1 seeds and three-time Grand Slam doubles-winning duo Daniel Nestor and Nenad Zimonjic will play their first round opener against UAE wild cards Omar Awadhy and Hamad Abbas Janahi on court one.
