Leander Paes and Martin Damm were halted in their stride at Wimbledon on Friday.
The fifth seeded Indo-Czech duo was beaten by fourth seeds Fabrice Santoro and Nenad Zimonjic in the quarter-finals.
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Paes and Damm bounced back after losing the first set in the tie-breaker by taking the second in similar fashion. But after being broken in the tenth game of the third set, which saw games go with serve till then, they simply caved in and lost a three-hour battle 6-7(6), 7-6(5), 4-6, 3-6.
There was little to separated the two teams, but Frenchman Santoro and
Serbia's Zimonjic, Paes's former partner, had a better break-point conversion percentage, winning four out of seven against two out of four by their opponents.
They also played the crucial points better, winning 142 against the defending US Open champions' 129.