Israeli duo gets surprise defeat in Connecticut, three days after claiming the biggest title of their career.
By ALLON SINAIram erlich 298.88(photo credit: AP [file])
Just three days after claiming the biggest title of their career Andy Ram and Yoni Erlich suffered a surprise defeat on Wednesday night in the first round of the Pilot Penn tennis tournament in New Haven, Connecticut.
The Israelis, who were seeded second at New Haven, lost 7-6 (1), 6-2 to American duo Alex Kuznetsov and Ryan Sweeting.
Ram and Erlich, who defeated the world's No. 1 doubles team of Bob and Mike Bryan on Sunday to win the Cincinnati masters shield, struggled on Kuznetsov and Sweeting's service games and reached just one break point during the entire match.
The duo won just eight points on the Americans' serves throughout the match and, despite saving five of seven break points, never really had any chance of advancing.
After splitting the first 12 games of the match the first set was decided on tiebreak, which was dominated by Kuznetsov and Sweeting.
The Americans claimed the first break of the match in the fifth game of the second set and went on to take the next three games to complete the shock win.
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