A day after stunning the fifth seeds, Leander Paes and Purav Raja went down in straight sets to the Colombian pair of Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah in the pre-quarterfinals to bring an end to their Australian Open campaign.

The unseeded Indians were beaten 1-6, 2-6 by their 11th seeded opponents in a contest that lasted one hour and nine minutes at the Melbourne Park.

Paes and Raja failed to capitalise on any one of the five break points, two in the first set and three in the second, they got in the match while the Cabal and Farah converted four out the 10 they had. The Colombians broke the Indians twice in both the sets to easily grab the match and make it to the quarterfinals.

The Indian pair had earlier beaten former champions Bruno Soares and Jamie Murray. Paes and Raja, who won two Challenger level titles to close the 2017 season, were playing in their second Grand Slam together. They had fallen in the second round at the US Open last year.

Paes has not featured in the quarterfinals of a Grand Slam for more than a year. The last time the 44-year-old played a quarterfinal at a Grand Slam was in 2016 at French Open where he and Marcin Matkowski had lost to Mike and Bob Bryan.

With inputs from PTI