The country's challenge at the men's doubles event of the Australian Open came crashing down in a single day with three pairs featuring Indians suffered first round defeats, in Melbourne on Wednesday, 16 January.
The 15th seeded Indian team of Rohan Bopanna and Divij Sharan, who began their partnership with a bang in Pune, lost 1-6 6-4 5-7 to the unseeded Spanish pair of Pablo Carreno Busta and Guillermo Garcia-Lopez.
It is second straight first round defeat for the new Indian team on the tour after their triumph at the Tata Open Maharashtra. Last week, they had lost the round of 16 at the Sydney International.
Competing in his 24th Australian Open, veteran Leander Paes and his partner Miguel Angel Reyes-Varela saved a few match points but eventually fell 5-7 6-7(4) to American-Kiwi combo of Austin Krajicek and Artem Sitak.
Also making the first round exit was Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan and his partner Nicholas Monroe, who lost 6-4 6-7(8) 5-7 to Kevin Krawietz and Nikola Mektic after fighting hard for two hours and 20 minutes.
Prajnesh Gunneswaran had also made a first round exit after coming through the Qualifiers while Ramkumar Ramanathan, Ankita Raina and Karman Thandi could not make it to the singles main draw.
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