Two close-fought tiebreaks have been sufficient to finish Aussie pair Rinky Hijikata and Jason Kubler’s hopes of annexing one other males’s grand slam doubles crown on the first hurdle on the French Open.
The wildcard duo, who’d by no means performed collectively earlier than their sudden triumph at Melbourne Park in January, had been hardly in a position to credit score how they knocked out three top-10 seeds and went on to succeed Nick Kyrgios and Thanasi Kokkinakis as Australian Open champions.
Installed as fifteenth seeds and seen as real contenders in Paris, they’d been hopeful of inflicting extra upsets solely to go down preventing 7-6 (7-4) 7-6 (7-5) to Portugal’s Francisco Cabral and Brazilian Rafael Matos within the first spherical on Tuesday morning.
With every pair grabbing a break apiece within the two-hour contest, the match got here down to 2 tight breakers, with the Australian pair having to cling on within the second-set denouement, saving two match factors at 5-6 down.
In the tiebreak that adopted, they nonetheless saved themselves alive, preventing again from 5-2 right down to stage at 5-5, nevertheless it wasn’t sufficient.
It means the tip of the probabilities of one other grand slam-winning Aussie males’s staff, this time at Roland Garros, following Hijikata and Kubler’s victory in Melbourne and Max Purcell and Matt Ebden triumphing at Wimbledon.
Kokkinakis, who had teamed up with Jan-Lennard Struff earlier than hoping to reunite with Kyrgios at Wimbledon, additionally bought knocked out along with his new German companion on Tuesday, shedding 7-6 (7-1) 3-6 6-3 to Italians Fabio Fognini and Simone Bolelli.
Purcell, although, plans to play his first spherical match with younger American gun Brian Shelton on Wednesday in opposition to Britons Julian Cash and Henry Patten, regardless of the ankle damage that troubled him in his singles win over Jordan Thompson.
Source: www.perthnow.com.au
