Paes-Dlouhy crash out in first round

French Open champions Leander Paes and Lukas Dlouhy fell at the first hurdle in the men's doubles at Wimbledon, losing to James Blake and Mardy Fish on Thursday.

The third seeded pair, who was losing semi-finalists at the championships last year, were handed a 6-4, 6-4, 6-3 drubbing by the unseeded Americans.

With both pairs allowing hardly any room for error, games went with serve in the first set till the Indo-Czech pair erred. Paes came under pressure in the tenth game and dropped serve, handing the Americans the set in 34 minutes.

Paes and Dlouhy were more aggressive at the start of the second, advancing to the net repeatedly. And it paid off as Fish's serve was broken in the third game. Paes served out a love game to establish a 3-1 lead.

Blake's serve came under pressure as Paes and Dlouhy went 40-0 in the fifth game, but the Americans saved the three break-points. Deuce was called twice before the Indo-Czech pair effected the second break of the set to go 4-1 up.

But the Americans came back strongly and broke Dlouhy and Paes's serves to draw abreast at 4-4. Blake then held before Dlouhy was broken and the Americans went two sets up.

Any hopes of a fightback the Indo-Czech duo may have entertained suffered a setback when Paes was broken in the second game of the third set. Though they returned the compliment in the next game on Blake's serve, the Americans effected another break in the eighth game on Dlouhy's serve and then held to take the set and match at 6-3 in a little under 110 minutes.