Paes-Damm pair crashes out of French Open

Paris, Jun 1 (UNI) Leander Paes and his Czech partner Martin Damm crashed out of the French Open with a 6-1, 7-6 first round loss to Serbian-Russian pair of Janko Tipsarevic and Mikhail Youzhny in the men's doubles event at the Roland Garros here today.

Paes and Damm, who were seeded seventh in the event, found themselves struggling against their unheralded opponents from the first set.

The seventh seeds ran out of steam after winning a game and their opponents bagged five games in a row to race away with the set.

The Indo-Czech pair was trailing 1-2 in the second set but came back strongly to win three games on the trot to make it 4-2 and even led 5-3 at a stage before the Tipsarevic and Youzhny caught up and the set moved into tie-break.

Despite their vast experience Paes and Damm could not raise their game when it mattered most and lost the tie-breaker 4-7 to crash out of the tournament.

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