Leander Paes and his Chinese teammate Yifan Xu lost in the mixed doubles first round at Wimbledon 2017 on Friday. The French-Romanian team of Fabrice Martin and Raluca Olaru beat the Indo-Chinese pairing 5-7, 6-3, 6-2 in an hour and 52 minutes.
In the opening set, it was Paes and Xu who set the tempo of the match taking a hard-fought lead by winning the set 7-5. However, as the match progressed they couldn’t hold on to their upbeat momentum for long. Five service breaks for Martin and Olaru across the latter two sets saw them through into the second round. While Paes and Xu were unable to convert none of the three break points they had on their opponents’ serve in the second set, Martin and Olaru didn’t face a single break point on their serve in the third set.
Paes and Xu won 70% points on their first serves to their opponents’ winning 73%, and 46% points off their second serves to Martin and Olaru’s 57%. At the end of it all though, only 10 points separated the two teams, with Paes and Xu winning 89 points to Martin and Olaru’s 99.
Divij Sharan and Yang Zhaoxuan also lost in the first round of the mixed doubles draw, going down 3-6, 4-6 to Ken Skupski and Jocelyn Rae.
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