The Indian challenge at the Millennium Estoril Open ended on Thursday as Leander Paes, and Divij Sharan and Purav Raja were defeated in their respective quarter-final matches.
Leander Paes and Andre Sa miss out on a semi-final
Fourth seeds Paes and his Brazilian teammate Andre Sa were narrowly upset by Nicolas Almagro and Guillermo Garcia-Lopez. The Spanish duo won 7-6(2), 4-6, 10-8 in an hour and 38 minutes.
In the first set, Paes and Sa saved three break points on their serve before they lost steam in the ensuing tie-break, winning just points in it to give their opponents the lead in the match. The Indo-Brazilian tandem, however, made a strong recovery in the second set that first had both teams exchange breaks of serve, before the fourth seeds gained a second break to level the match.
In the evenly contested match tie-break, the Spaniards eventually broke the deadlock taking the set, and the match, 10-8.
Divij Sharan and Purav Raja lose in straight sets
The Uruguayan-Belarusian team of Ariel Behar and Aliaksandr Bury defeated the Indian pair of Sharan and Raja in straight sets 7-5, 6-3 in 73 minutes.
Sharan and Raja could save only two of the five break points in their match and in turn managed to convert only one of the three break points on their opponents’ serve. The Indians put in 77% of their first serves and won 65% points off the same, to their opponents putting in 72% of their first serves and winning 80% points off their first serves. Throughout the match, Sharan and Raja won 45% points, with their opponents winning 55%, which helped them take the win.
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