It was a gritty first round loss for Leander Paes and his Canadian teammate Adil Shamasdin against the Austrian pair of Julian Knowle and Philipp Oswald at Wimbledon on Thursday. Knowle and Oswald won 4-6, 4-6, 6-2, 7-6(2), 10-8, with the match ending a minute short of the four-hour mark.

Earlier, Paes and Shamasdin looked to be in control of the match as they raced away to a two-set-to-love lead. However, their dominance started to breakdown in the third set in which they were not only broken twice, but also failed to convert any of the three break points they had on Knowle and Oswald’s serve.

In the deciding fifth set, the Indo-Canadian team faced three break points on their serve. But, while they were able to stave off two break points, they couldn’t save the third, which came about in the 17th game of the set. Serving for the match, Knowle and Oswald made no mistakes as they won the match comfortably, dropping just one point in the game.

Paes and Shamasdin finished with 12 aces and nine double faults for the match, with the Austrians hitting 10 aces and eight double faults. The Indo-Canadian team converted 72% points off their first serves and 44% points off their second serves to their opponents winning 82% and 48% points off their first and second serves respectively. Paes and Shamasdin won a total of 168 points with the Austrians’ winning 186.