The mixed doubles pair of Mahesh Bhupathi and Sania Mirza as well as Leander Paes and Rennae Stubbs were sent packing out from the Round II at Wimbledon on Saturday, June 28. For Mahesh Bhupathi, the defeat has marked off a poor performance at this year’s Wimbledon Championships. Bhupathi became the first Indian to win a Grand Slam tournament with Rika Hiraki in the Mixed Doubles Wimbledon event in 1997. This time, however, he crashed out of the men’s doubles event during the first round.

Again in the second round, the pair of Sania Mirza and Mahesh Bhupathi got ousted by unseeded Russian team of Igor Andreev and Maria Kirilenko 6-7, 3-6. In contrast, Mirza has been successful in progressing in the women’s doubles and has now entered the round three with Bethanie Mattek. The pair of Leander Paes and Stubbs crashed out after losing 3-6, 6-3, 3-6 to Swede Jonas Bjorkman Alicia Molik. Rohan Bopanna and his Belarussian partner Tatiana Poutchek, meanwhile, went down 3-6, 6-7 to Swede-American pair of Simon Aspelin and Lisa Raymond in the first of the three mixed doubles matches featuring Indians on Saturday.