India’s Leander Paes and French partner Benoit Paire went down in the second round of the men’s doubles competition of the French Open on Saturday.
The Indo-French pair lost 0-6 6-4 3-6 to the third seeded Colombian duo of Robert Farah and Juan Cabal in the match that lasted an hour and 58 minutes.
They were blanked in the first set but fought back to force a decider. They were up by a break in final set but lost eventually to the more regular pair.
The duo, who partnered at the Maharashtra Open in Pune earlier this year, had beaten Dominic Inglot of Britain and Martin Klizan of Slovakia 6-4 6-4 in the first round on Friday.
Talk about partners being in sync 😂 Happy to get the W with @benpaire and be back at @rolandgarros .Thank you to everyone who came out to support us. See you in the next round 👊🏽 #RG19 #RolandGarros pic.twitter.com/PDEdZcQ1gQ
— Leander Paes (@Leander) May 31, 2019
This ends Paes’ campaign at Roland Garros this year. The 45-year-old Paes has won four French Open doubles titles since starting his journey in 1989.
French world No 38, who reached the fourth round in Paris for the first time, will play seventh seed Kei Nishikori on Sunday. He is also alive in the mixed doubles.
The only other Indian left in the men’s doubles at Roland Garros is Rohan Bopanna who reached the pre-quarterfinals with his Romanian partner Marius Copil on Friday.