Dubai: India's Leander Paes and Janko Tipsarevic stumbled at the very first hurdle in the doubles at the Dubai Duty Free Men's Open here yesterday.
Paes, a former winner here with Mahesh Bhupathi in 1998 and then with David Rikl in 2003, and singles quarter-finalist Tipsarevic went down in straight sets 4-6, 5-7 against the second-seeded pairing of Robert Lindstedt and Horia Tecau.
Service break
Swede Lindstedt and Romanian Tecau won through to book a meeting with Jonathan Erlich and Andy Ram in round two. Their first round match lasted a little over an hour and was settled when they broke serve in the 11th game of the second set, before holding serve to wrap up the victory.
Earlier in the day, Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi — teaming up with Jean-Julien Rojer of the Netherlands following his split with Indian partner Rohan Bopanna — also went out in the first round 4-6, 7-6 (12), 1-0 against Paul Hanley and Jamie Murray.
Epic match
Murray — the brother of world No 4 Andy — and his Australian partner won the epic match and will now play either Indian duo Bhupathi and Bopanna or Czech Lukas Dlouhy and Ukrainian Alexandr Dolgopolov, depending on the result of their first round match last night.
