Williamstown’s Andrew Whittington and doubles partner Alex Bolt were given only a short leash at the 2016 Australian Open.
The Whittington-Bolt duo was ousted in the first round at Melbourne Park on Wednesday, after a gruelling three-set defeat to India’s Mahesh Bupathi and Luxembourg’s Gilles Muller.
The Bupathi-Muller combination clinched a 7-6 (7-4) 3-6 6-4 win over the hometown favourites in two hours 13 minutes on outside court seven.
It was a disappointing outcome for the locals, with memories of their quarter finals appearance only two years ago still fresh.
In the Bupathi-Muller combo, there is Bupathi, who is a doubles specialist, a 41-year-old veteran with 52 doubles titles and more than $6.6million in prizemoney, while Muller has a singles ranking of 38th in the world and $3.2million in prizemoney.
Compare that to Whittington, who has won a modest $125,000 in comparison and is a developing 22-year-old starting to make his way in the game, and Bolt, a year older with $217,000 career earnings … and you can see the difference.
But Whittington and Bolt were certainly not out of their depth. There were periods in the match where they would have been fancied to go on and record victory. They actually won more points in the match – 113 to 105.
But, unfortunately, the young Australians could not last the distance. After losing a first set tiebreaker, Whittington and Bolt hit back strongly to take the second set.
Right across the board, the stats were fairly even, but the inability of Whittington and Bolt to convert break points was telling.
They converted just three of the 15 available, while Bupathi and Muller got the one that counted in the third set to run out winners.
