Leander Paes of India and Cara Black of Zimbabwe with the mixed doubles trophy at US Open 2008. Photo Courtesy: AP.
Leander Paes of India and Cara Black of Zimbabwe with the mixed doubles trophy at US Open 2008. Photo Courtesy: AP.

Paes-Black falter at final hurdle

Mon-Jul 06, 2009

London / Press Trust of India

Leander Paes' dream of winning his 10th career Grand Slam went up in smoke after Mark Knowles and Anna-Lena Groenefeld defeated the Indian and his Zimbabwean partner Cara Black in straight sets to lift the Wimbledon mixed doubles title in London.

The top seed Indo-Zimbabwean pair were no where near to their best as Knowles and Groenefeld, seeded ninth, took one hour and 28 minutes to overcame their fancied opponents 7-5 6-3.

After their triumph in the US Open last year, Paes and Black had a poor run in the circuit, making second round exits from both the Australian as well as the French Open.

The Indo-Zimbabwean pair, who had a more or less easy run en route the final here, clearly lacked on-court chemistry on Saturday and made numerous unforced errors that cost them dearly.

Contrary to the result, Paes and Black started the match on a confident note and broke their opponents twice in the opening set -- fifth and seventh game -- to race to 5-2 lead.

But riding on the top seed's unforced errors, Knowles and Groenefeld clawed their way back into the match and won five consecutive games, which includes a double break in the ninth and 11th games, to pocket the first set 7-5.

Rate This Article:
No votes yet

Comments For This Post

Post new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
This question is to prevent automated spam submissions.
Image CAPTCHA
Copy the characters (respecting upper/lower case) from the image.