India's Leander Paes and Purav Raja's campaign at the Australian Open ended in the third round in the men's doubles after Comlubia duo Robert Farah and Juan Sebastian Cabal cruised past the Indian pair 6-1,6-2.
The unseeded Indian duo displayed a valiant effort in the second round when they defeated English-Brazilian pair of fifth seeds Jamie Murray and Bruno Soares 7-6 (3), 5-7, 7-6 (6) in a clash that lasted two hours and 54 minutes.
The same grit was nowhere seen in today's clash as the Columbian players didn't break a sweat in the third round and rode off an easy win. Paes-Raja crashed out of the first grand slam of the year after a series of errors and misjudgements cost the duo.
Paes and Raja, who won two Challenger level titles to close the 2017 season, were playing in their second Grand Slam together.
At the 2017 US Open, they fell in the second round.
Paes has not featured in the quarterfinals of a Grand Slam event for more than a year.
The last time 44-year-old Paes played a quarterfinal at a Grand Slam was in 2016 at French Open where he and Marcin Matkowski had lost to Mike and Bob Bryan.
Rohan Bopanna, along with Hungarian tennis player Timea Babos, will play the Australian duo of Ellen Perez and Andrew Whittington in the first round of Mixed Doubles later today.
(More to follow)
