India's Mahesh Bhupathi and Mark Knowles of Bahamas lost a marathon five-setter to South African Wesley Moodie and Dick Norman of Belgium in the Wimbledon men's doubles quarter-finals here Wednesday.
Bhupathi and Knowles, seeded fourth, lost 6-7(9), 6-4, 6-7 (7), 7-5, 4-6 in almost three and a half hours.
There was little to chose between the two teams as they served strong and kept coming back at each other.
Bhupathi and Knowles had only four break point opportunities in the entire match and they converted two to win the second and fourth sets.
Ninth-seeded Moodie and Norman had the tie-breakers going their way in both the first and third sets. But they took the right chances in the decider, breaking their opponents for the only time in the match. In all, they had six break point chances in the match three of which came in the decider.
After getting the important break in the decider, Moodie and Norman managed well when serving for the set at 5-4. Bhupathi and Knowles led 30-15 but Moodie and Norman took three points in a row to seal the issue.