Paes crashes out, Sania stays afloat in doubles (Lead)

French Open champions Leander Paes and Lukas Dlouhy of the Czech Republic crashed out of the Wimbledon tennis championships in a sensational first-round loss to American James Blake and Mardy Fish 6-4, 6-4, 6-3 in the men's doubles here Thursday.

However, India's Sania Mirza and Chia-Jung Chuang of Chinese Taipei sailed into the women's doubles second round with a 6-4, 6-2 victory over American Jill Craybas and Carly Gullickson.

Paes and Dlouhy, who won their first Grand Slam together at Roland Garros this month, were drowned in a sea of errors to lose in an hour and 49 minutes.

Third seeded Paes and Dlouhy had 19 break points against their opponents, but they could convert only three. They squandered four break points in the first set and a whopping 13 in the second.

To add to their misery, they had 11 doubles faults and 12 unforced errors. To top it all, they had problems holding their serve.

Blake and Fish broke them once in the first set and thrice in the second. All together, they converted six of their 12 break points.

Sania, who exited in the singles second round, kept her hopes alive in doubles competition.

Sania and Chuang, seeded 15th, had difficulty in holding their service, and so had their opponents in the first set. Sania and Chuang dropped their serve twice, but broke their opponents thrice.

The American pair saved seven break points before Sania and Chuang broke them in the fourth game.

Craybas and Gullickson came back twice, but each time Sania and Chuang got back the lead and finally closed out the set in the 10th game.

Sania and Chuang were in full control in the second set and wrapped it up with two break of serves.

They will next face Russian Alla Kudryavtseva and Romania's Monica Niculescu, who beat Spaniard Lourdes Dominguez Lino and Arantxa Parra Santonja 7-5, 4-6, 6-1.

Last updated on Jun 25^th, 2009 at 21:55 pm IST--IANS