Paes-Nadal go down in opening round of Paris Masters
Leander Paes' doubles experiment with Rafael Nadal hit an early bump as the duo lost to the Brit-Swede pair of Dominic Inglot and Robert Lindstedt 6-3, 6-4 in 62 minutes, in the opening round of the BNP Paribas Masters in Paris on Tuesday.
The Indo- Spanish pair started out on the front foot as they broke serve on the very first game and made it 2-0 in the next. Inglot and Lindstedt, however, came back strongly as they pulled back the next three points. Paes and Nadal leveled the score at 3-3 on their serve. But, their opponents found their service game soon, firing four aces against none from the Indo-Spanish duo through the set. Inglot and Lindstedt, both ranked in the 20s in doubles, quickly won the next three points to take the set 6-3.Â
The second set saw no breaks as both sides cruised to 3-3. Paes, however, was broken on the next game as Nadal's net play let the pair down in the face of some attacking play by their opponents. The Brit-Swede duo quickly took the score to 5-4 with a consistent attack on Nadal's game. In the final game, Paes and Nadal showed some resistance to save two match points from 0-40 to 30-40. They gave up the match easily on the next point though, as a Nadal forehand went wide.