Mumbai: Legendary Leander Paes was unable to acquire the men’s doubles title this year in ATP Tour, along with his partner German Andre Begemann in the final of the St Petersburg Open on Sunday.
The duo went down against Dominic Inglot and Henri Kontinen, after failing to convert a match point in the super-tiebreak.
Paes-Begemann had a good start with a set of 6-4 displaying their skill in an efficient manner. Matters tensed up in the second set when Inglot and Kontinen came from the back and broke the former duo in the eighth game closing off at 6-3.
The above resulted in a super-tiebreak. The Indo-German duo’s hopes shattered as they almost earned the last point standing at 9-8, but Inglot-Kontinen stole the show by winning a championship point.
Paes and Begemann went down at 10-12, which resulted in their second defeat final ATP tournament. This striking duo had also lost to Winston-Salem Open final last month to Henri Kontinen and Guillermo Garcia-Lopez.
Paes’ last victory at the ATP tournament was with South Africa’s Raven Klaasen at Auckland in 2015. He had also lost in the first rounds of the Australian Open followed by the US Open, and had exited from Wimbledon in the 2nd round.
Paes aspires to do better even though his best this year was his quarterfinal appearance at the Grand Slam in the French Open.