Leander Paes and Elena Vesnina who were looking for their first Grand Slam win together will have to wait as they lost to Mike Bryan and Lisa Raymond 3-6 7-5 4-6 in the finals of the mixed double category at Wimbledon, says a report in the Hindustan Times.
This was the second time when the pair ended up as the runner-up, following their loss against Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Horia Tecau in the Australian Open finals earlier this year.
The Indo-Russian pair who shocked the top seeds Bob Bryan and Liezel Huber in the semifinals fought hard throughout the match, but couldn’t seal the match, says a report in Telegraph India. Paes and Vesnina lost the first set, but came back strongly to win the second set 7-5.
In the third and final set they were two games behind but came back strongly and leveled the score 2-2. They then got the lead after winning the fifth game of the match. But the next three games went against them as the second seeds took a lead with a score of 5-3 in their favor. Paes-Vesnina won the next game but that was not enough as the 10th game went in their opponent’s favor and they lost the deciding set 4-6.
A report in The Hindu says that it was creditable performance by Paes to reach the finals of the Wimbledon after the selection drama that took place in India just before the tournament started. Top ranked players from India refused to team up with Paes for the Olympics and Paes was forced to pair with lower-ranked Vishnu Vardhan.
Even Sania Mirza who did not refuse to play with Paes said that her preferred partner was Bhupathi, with whom she has won two Grand Slam titles.
Paes is the highest Grand Slam title winner for India with 13 trophies, six of them are in mixed doubles category.
