London, July 4 (IANS) India's tennis star Rohan Bopanna and his men's doubles partner Romania's Florin Mergea were knocked out in the third round of the Wimbledon tennis tournament here on Monday.
The sixth seeded Indo-Romanian pair went down 6-2, 3-6, 4-6, 7-6 (6), 6-8 to 10th seeded pairing of Finnish Henri Kontinen and his partner Australia's John Peers in two hours and 55 minutes.
The sixth seeded pair started the match on a positive note taking an important 4-0 lead and then eventually won the opening 6-2 to grab the advantage. Bopanna-Mergea won 9 out of 10 first serve points in the set. The pair broke their opponent twice in the set.
But Kontinen-Peers made a strong comeback in the second set winning 13 out of 15 first serve points and breaking the sixth seeds once to take the second set 6-3.
In the third set, the 10th seeded Finnish and Australian pair carried on the momentum from the second set to win 18 out of 22 first serve points and breaking Bopanna-Mergea once to win the third set 6-4 and take a 2-1 led in the tie at court No.14.
Bopanna-Mergea staged a much needed comeback in the fourth set to stay in the match as they won 17 out of 18 first serve points along with three aces to take the game into tri-break. The Indo-Romanian pair prevailed in the tri-break to win it 8-6 and come to 2-2 level terms and take the match to fifth and deciding set.
The fifth and final set saw an even tougher battle between the two sides but Kontinen-Peers held their nerves to win 25 out of 31 first serve points and also earn a break point as the 10th seeds stunned the sixth seeds 8-6 in the fifth set to book a place in the quarters.
--IANS
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