AFP
Rio de Janeiro: India’s Leander Paes’s seventh Games ended in a bitter first round loss at the Olympic tennis tournament.
Paes, 43, and Rohan Bopanna were defeated 6-4, 7-6 (8/6) by Lukas Kubot and Marcin Matkowski of Poland.
The evergreen Paes was a singles bronze medallist at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.
He shrugged off the controversy surrounding his Rio selection after it was claimed Bopanna preferred to play with Saketh Myneni.
“It had no effect on us. We gave it everything we had and fought hard,” said Paes. “I was hoping to go deeper in the draw but we came up against a very hot Polish team.”
Paes and Matkowski are regular partners on the ATP Tour and reached the French Open quarter-finals.
Later Monday, fifth seeded Venus Williams, the 2000 champion in Sydney, starts against Belgium’s Kirsten Flipkens.
At 36, Williams is the oldest player in the women’s draw in Rio.
Defending champions Andy Murray and Serena Williams as well as world number one Novak Djokovic and 2008 champion Rafael Nadal all start their campaigns on Tuesday.
Djokovic, bidding to become just the third man after Andre Agassi and Nadal to complete the Golden Slam of Olympic gold and the four majors, has arguably the toughest opening encounter.
The Serb faces 2009 US Open champion Juan Martin del Potro who beat him in the bronze medal match at the London Olympics in 2012.
Meanwhile, apan’s Taro Daniel caused the biggest shock on the first day of the Olympics tennis tournament yeserday when the world number 117 stunned US 14th seed Jack Sock.
Daniel, born in New York to an American father and Japanese mother, but who lives in the Spanish city of Valencia, eased to a 6-4, 6-4 win.
The 23-year-old, who next faces Britain’s Kyle Edmund, said the win was one of the best of his career that justified his decision to play the Olympics rather than chase ranking points at second-tier events in Europe.
“I’m a young player. I wanted to prioritise things that are going to be positive to my career experience,” said Daniel.
“I can’t really rush with the points. It makes sense for the older guys, I guess, to skip this and save their energy for the Grand Slams.
“I could have just stayed in Europe, trying to get more points. But I am getting some really unbelievable experience and I feel like I am part of something much bigger.”
