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.
In the super-tie breaker, the Uzbeks raced to a 3-0 lead and soon the Indians were down 5-1. The Uzbeks pulled off a stunning service return winner to make it 6-1 on Bopanna's serve.
Fomin earned four match points with a backhand winner. The Indians saved the first but Sultanov found a inside-out forehand winner on the second to close the contest in their favour.
Bhambri could not support Bopanna enough
India coach Zeeshan Ali said that Bopanna did not get the required support from Bhambri in the match.
"At this level and being an experienced player, one cannot afford to make many errors at crucial moments of the match. You have to be able to grab any opportunity that presents itself," Zeeshan told PTI.
"Not taking anything away from the Uzbekistan players, they probably played the best match of their lives, with nothing to lose. We had chances in the second set with a couple of break points at 3-all and, had we won that game, the outcome of the match would have been different."
The Indians could not convert 12 out of the 16 break-points they got in the match.
"Rohan played a good match but unfortunately did not get the required support needed to win today from his partner who otherwise has been having a very good doubles season," added Zeeshan.
Bopanna had ended his Davis Cup career last week, playing against Morocco in Lucknow. At 43, he is also playing his last Asian Games. He had won gold in the 2018 edition with Divij Sharan.