Leander Paes and Vishnu Vardhan lost 6-7 (3) 6-4 4-6 to Tsonga and Llodra in the men&#39;s doubles second round last night in a gruelling contest that lasted over two hours. Paes, who teamed up with Vardhan after being rejected by both Mahesh Bhupathi and Rohan Bopanna in a bitter selection row, lauded his inexperienced partner&#39;s fighting spirit. &quot;Being the first time that we have played together as a team, we&#39;ve played a hell of a match again. Our first-round match was against some really tough opponents with one player No.33 in the world in singles (Robin Hasse) and the other No.21 in doubles (Jean-Julien Rojer), and we managed to beat them,&quot; Paes said. <img alt="Vishnu Vardhan, Leander Paes" src="/imagedata/2012/aug/lee-vish2aug.jpg" style="width: 500px; height: 463px; " /> Vishnu Vardhan (L) and Leander Paes. Photo: AFP &quot;Today it was tougher. We had Tsonga who is No.5 in the world for singles and Llodra who is a multiple Grand Slam champion.&quot; &quot;I have to commend this guy Vishnu he&#39;s got a big heart and I&#39;ve had such a thrill playing with him. He&#39;s a phenomenal competitor and he&#39;s got big stature as far as physique and things go and that is what champions are made of,&quot; he added. Paes said he was satisfied with the duo&#39;s performance despite an early exit. &quot;Today we came up one or two games short against a formidable French team, but I was just talking to Vish during the match and saying &#39;can you imagine a third or fourth match playing together?&#39; We have a lot of firepower but there are still a few things that we have to improve on. We have a big game and I&#39;m very happy about that,&quot; he said. Asked to reflect on the state of Indian tennis, which was rocked by a massive selection row just days before the Games, Paes said, &quot;As far as Indian tennis goes, this last week has been a little bitter-sweet as far as our team goes.u00a0Bitter because I have won the championships here five times and we went down today. &quot;Sweet because I think that we&#39;ve found a great talent here. I&#39;ve always known that Vish is talented and on the world stage he is going to perform.&quot;u00a0 &quot;Now we really have to nurture this talent. With a little experience, can you imagine? We&#39;ve really rattled the No.5 singles player in the world and a multiple doubles grand slam champion today.&quot; Vardhan, meanwhile, credited his good performance to the effort put in by Paes ahead of the Games. &quot;Lee and his team have been working on me for the last month and a half. It&#39;s not just an overnight thing. We&#39;ve spoken about strategies and tactics and then the game-plan last night and I cannot thank him enough.&quot;u00a0 He is an amazing leader and this is how a champion is. This is a great opportunity for me to play with someone like Leander and this is by far the best match ever. I have no words,&quot; he said. On his future plans after the big Olympic break, Vardhan said, &quot;I&#39;ve focused equally on both singles and doubles, but in the last month and a half we have been working hard on the doubles game and it&#39;s coming along great.&quot;u00a0 &quot;What Leander Paes has been doing is great, working on my game. For the last 18 years of tennis what have I learned? I feel I&#39;ve learnt more in the last month and a half. I&#39;m very happy about it.&quot;u00a0

Disappointed they might be after the second-round exit from Olympics but veteran Indian tennis star Leander Paes said he and his unheralded Vishnu Vardhan played "one hell of a match" against the fancied French combination of Michael Llodra and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga here.

We played one hell of a match: Paes

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We played one hell of a match: Paes

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