Wimbledon 2019 | Divij Sharan wins second round, Leander Paes loses in mixed doubles
Indian doubles ace Divij Sharan continued his winning streak in the ongoing Grand Slam alongside Brazilian partner Marcelo Demoliner as he overcame a tricky four-setter. In other game, Leander Paes had to bow out in the first round itself along with his Australian partner Samantha Stosur.
Playing against the All German duo of Joran Vliegen and Sander Gillé was always going to take hard work and the Indo-Brazilian pair got an idea of that in the very first set, which was forced into the decider. However, despite being unable to break their opponent even once during the set, Sharan and Demoliner broke them thrice in the decider to win the first set 7 (7) - 6 (1).
However, they couldn’t take their opponents lightly and a warning was issue in the very next set, where just when the set looked to go for another decider, Sharan/ Demoliner were broke in the eleventh game as they lost the set 5-7.Â
The third set went to the decider as well and this time the German duo didn’t make the same mistakes as the first set. Although they eventually lost the set, they had managed to break the India-Brazilian duo twice in the process before going down 7 (8) - 6 (6).
The fourth set had got everyone excited after the manner in which the first three sets had panned out and while everyone expected yet another thrilling decider, it was a pretty straight forward one. The German duo was broken in the third game itself as they lost the set 3-1 of the three-hour-long match.
Paes’ defeat was more straightforward in the three-setter against British duo Evan Hoyt and Eden Silva. The Indo-Australian pair had started well in the first set but couldn’t take it to the decider and was broken right on the ninth game to lose it 4-6.
However, an experienced veteran like Paes wasn’t going to give up easily and fought his way back alongside Stosur in the second set to win it 6-2 by breaking their opponents twice, but that wasn’t enough. The third set saw a dramatic turnaround as despite leading 3-1 initially, Paes and Stosur were broken twice to lose the deciding set 4-6.
