June 28, 2008	Saturday	Jamadi-us-Sani 23, 1429

Pakistan tennis star Aisam-ul-Haq and his Indian partner Rohan Bhopanna failed to repeat their first round performance and crashed out in straight sets to little-known Spanish team of M. Granollers and S. Ventura at Wimbledon on Thursday. The Spaniards won 6-2, 6-4, 6-2.

“We didn’t play our best tennis today and let our rivals dominate,” said a dejected Aisam while talking to Dawn after the match.

“We didn’t put a lot of first serves in. It was very windy so everyone was getting a little bit tentative on the second serve.

“We weren’t able to play to our strength.”

“On paper we were the favourites to win this match because our game suits grass. But we were just not able to execute it today. We lost key points and were trailing in every set from the start. We were getting break points but we were not converting. If we had got one, we could have shifted the momentum towards us. It was a little bit unlucky also,” added Aisam.

The winning pair broke Bopanna’s serve at the start of the first set and broke him again in the seventh game to take a 5-2 lead and won the set 6-2.

The second set also saw little resistance from Aisam-Bhopanna pair as they lost their serve in the very first game. At 3-4 they had three breakpoints but were unable to convert any of them and lost the set 4-6.

The third set seemed like a mere formality. Aisam and Bhopanna lost their serves in succession and Granollers-Ventura cruised through the set, winning it 6-2.