Rosco and Huss pipped in Wimbledon epic
The No.16 seeds had to complete their first round match a day later, but could not finish off a supercharged Armitraj & Qureshi
Ross Hutchins and Stephen Huss came out second-best after an epic first-round encounter against Prakash Armitraj and Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi that had to be played over two days.
The Anglo-Aussie pair twice leveled the match having gone a set down to the Indian-Pakistani duo, with play brought to a halt at the end of the fourth set with the clock well past 9pm.
But on their return under the mid-afternoon sun on Wednesday, the No.16 seeds failed to stop Armitraj, son of Wimbledon doubles legend Vijay, and Qureshi from dominating at the net.
Tuesday’s play had been characterised by a string of missed chances from both pairs, with neither able to deliver a knock-out blow – although Armitraj and Qureshi could have taken the match in straight sets had Hutchins and Huss not dug in and survived until the mammoth 26-point tie-break.
Despite once again falling behind, Australian Huss and Briton Hutchins capitalised from the mistakes of their opponents to stay in the match after trailing 2-1, winning the fourth set in a decisive manner with two breaks of serve.
Bad light ended play there on Tuesday, and the match was a much feistier affair on Wednesday afternoon. Hutchins saved a pair of break points early in the set and, with Huss producing some inspired returns and Hutchins dominant when at net the pair looked in good shape to progress.
But a pair of bullet returns from Armitraj at net man Hutchins on Huss’ serve set up and converted the vital break in game eight of the final set, before Qureshi served the match out.
