India’s Leander Paes lost his 97th ATP tour final in the men’s doubles event at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championship on Saturday.

Paes and his American partner Jamie Cerretani lost to Jean-Julien Rojer of the Netherlands and Horia Tecau of Romania 2-6, 6-7(2). For Rojer-Tecau pair, this was their 17th ATP title as a pair.

The 44-year-old legendary Indian, who is currently ranked 52nd in the world, had a good tournament until the finals.

In his 28th season on pro-circuit, Paes is now only three finals short of achieving a century of summit clashes on the tour.

In Dubai, it was Leander-Cerretani pair’s second serve, which let them down.

While Tecau-Rojer had a success rate of 76 per cent, the Indo-US pair’s stood at mere 42 per cent. Also they could only convert one break point and that too in the second set which they stretched to the tie-breaker while the winners got three breaks in first set.