Rio de Janeiro, Aug 6 :
Leander Paes’s dreams of winning a second Olympic medal went up in smoke as he and Rohan Bopanna made an inglorious exit in the opening round of the men’s doubles competition, losing in straight sets to the Polish pair of Marcin Matkowski and Lukasz Kubot 4-6 6-7 (6-8) here today.
Playing in his record seventh and probably his last Olympics, Paes – a bronze medallist at the 1996 Atlanta Games, saw his campaign get over in only 84 minutes as not for once did the Indian pair look like having forged a winning combination.
The controversies leading upto the first round match also did not do any good to the pair as there was a distinct lack of on-court chemistry between them.
Ironically, at 43 Paes has possibly played his last Olympic match and too bad that it ended in whimper within two days of his arrival in the Brazilian city despite the bang that it created due to the off-court events in the lead up to the quadrennial extravaganza.
Questions being raised about Paes’ delay in joining the squad after playing World Team Tennis and subsequent reports of not getting a bed in the earmarked appartment in the Games Village only made the matters worse.
To top it, there was one practice session where the duo were hardly seen talking to each other. (PTI)
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