Men’s doubles top seeds Lukasz Kubot and Marcelo Melo overcame Divij Sharan and Rajeev Ram in three sets in a third round match at the Australian Open on Monday.
The Indo-US pair was beaten 6-3, 6-7(4), 4-6 in a contest that lasted two hours and 12 minutes at the Hisense Arena.
#AusOpen@DivijSharan & @RajeevRam fight hard but go down 6-3, 6-7(4), 4-6 to top seeds Marcelo Melo and Lukasz Kubot in a tough 3-setter.
— The Field (@thefield_in) January 22, 2018
Played! pic.twitter.com/GHP2G0P3hi
Ram and Sharan were quick off the blocks and pocketed the first set. The duo converted both their break points and hit 11 winners in the opening set.
In the second, Ram and Sharan had the opportunity to break on four occasions. Failing to capitalise on their chances led to a tie-breaker. A flurry of forced errors in the tiebreaker cost them the second set.
Both pairs began well in the third and were solid while serving. In the seventh game of the third set, Kubot and Melo broke Ram and Sharan to go 4-3 up. They won their next two service games to clinch the match.
On Sunday, 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.
