In a huge upset, gold medal favourites and top seeds Rohan Bopanna and Yuki Bhambri were knocked out of the Asian Games after being stunned by lower-ranked Sergey Fomin and Khumoyun Sultanov from Uzbekistan, here on Monday.
Bhambri struggled with his serve and strokes in the latter part of the match while the Uzbek players raised their game against their superior opponents to walk away with a 2-6 6-3 10-6 win in the second round.
The defeat will rankle the Indian pair all the more as Bopanna is a top-10 player in the doubles and Bhambri too is ranked among the top-100. The Uzbeks are not even in the top-300. (
Serving at 3-4, 30-all in the second set, Bhambri served a double fault to go down by a break point. A wide backhand from Bhambri’s racquet handed the Uzbeks the crucial break. Sultanov made no mistake in serving out the set by consistently putting in his first serves.
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