- Jamie Murray and Bruno Soares are out of the men’s doubles in Melbourne
- Murray and Soares, the 2016 champions, struggled to find their best form
- They slipped to defeat in three sets to Leander Paes and Purav Raja
Jamie Murray and Bruno Soares have been fixtures in the world’s top ten for doubles in the past three years, but they went down to one of their most shocking Grand Slam defeats on Saturday at the Australian Open.
Leaving the court apart showed the feelings that the Scottish-Brazilian duo had about losing 7-6, 5-7, 7-6 to veteran Indian pairing of Leander Paes and Purav Raja in a marathon two hour and 54 minutes.
The 2016 Melbourne Park champions, Soares and Murray were expected to beat evergreen 44 year-old Paes and his 32 year-old partner, having got their season off to a satisfactory start by getting to the final in Doha before they came here.
Jamie Murray walks off court after losing his men’s doubles match on Saturday
Murray and his partner Bruno Soares were beaten in the second round of the Australian Open
But they conceded break points galore, and were fortunate that the Indians could convert only two out of seventeen of them.
Having lost the first tiebreak 7-3 they edged the second, but lost the decider 8-6 when Purav hit a clean winner.
Murray, whose brother Andy has now left Melbourne after hip surgery, is still in the mixed doubles, where he is No 1 seed with Taipei’s Latisha Chan, his former partner Martina Hingis having now retired.
Purav Raja (left) and Leander Paes celebrate their second-round victory on Saturday
His next assignment in men’s doubles is in Great Britain’s Davis Cup first round against Spain the week after next in Marbella.
Meanwhile Kyle Edmund’s fourth round match against Andreas Seppi has been scheduled for around 5am British time on Sunday morning, 4pm local.