CARA Black’s participation at this year’s Wimbledon Championships is over after her latest defeat in the second round of the mixed doubles competition at the All England Club in Monday.
DANIEL NHAKANISO
The 35-year-old Zimbabwean and her playing partner Leander Paes, whom she partnered to three Grand Slam mixed doubles titles in 2008 and 2010, went down 6-1, 2-6, 3-6 to USA’s Eric Butorac and Hungarian Timea Babos in a match that lasted for 76 minutes.
Black and Paes, who were seeded fourth in the competition started strong against the pairing of Butorac and Babos, comfortably and looked on course to progress to the third round.
The American/Hungarian duo, however, turned the tie around after going on to comfortably win the next two sets to move into the third round. The loss means that Black’s dream to win another Wimbledon doubles title comes to an end.
Black has claimed three women’s doubles titles in 2007, 2005 and 2007. Black, who is the reigning Zimbabwe Sportsperson of the Year, has also won two mixed doubles titles at Wimbledon in 2004 and 2010.
Meanwhile, Zimbabwe Davis Cup tennis player Benjamin Lock has been quietly making progress on the ITF Futures circuit in Turkey where he just won his fourth ATP point. Lock, who won two ATP points in South Africa last month, advanced to the round of 16 of the Turkey F22 Futures by defeating Ogulcan Deniz from Turkey 6-0, 6-0.
His goal of reaching his first quarter-finals in a Futures tournament was stopped by Irishman Sam Barry, who ended up taking victory in a tight three-set match 7-6(4), 4-6, 7-5.
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Previously, Lock, who is on a scholarship at Florida State University, had won three rounds of matches in the qualifying draw.
