Roy, Donald go down fighting

Rupesh Roy and Stephen Donald of Australia stumbled at the post, going down fighting in the boys' doubles final of the Australian Open junior championships in Melbourne on Friday.

Roy and Donald, the eight seeds, stage a strong fightback after a sluggish start but the unseeded pair of Graeme Dyce of Great Britain and Finland's Harri Heliovaara resisted their late challenge to score a 6-2, 6-7 (4), 6-3 victory.

It was only the third instance of an Indian boy playing in the doubles final of a junior Grand Slam.

Zeeshan Ali and B. Steven of New Zealand at the US Open in 1987 and Mahesh Bhupathi partnering Nitin Kirtane at the Wimbledon in 1992 had achieved the feat before.

Sania Mirza remains the only Indian to have won a Grand Slam junior doubles title, at the Wimbledon in 2003, although Leander Paes and Ramesh Krishnan have won in singles.

Roy and Donald battled for two hours and 13 minutes while going down guns blazing.

Neither team showed the fright of the big stage and went all out for the winners.

As such, there were umpteen breaks of serve and the Finnish-British duo emerged the better sides in the closely fought contest, converting six of the 18 breakpoints that came their way.

What undid Roy and Donald were their poor first serve percentage of 46 compared to 76 by their opponents.