London: American Robert Galloway, who retired from the mixed doubles having fractured his fourth finger (left hand), took the court for the Wimbledon men’s doubles third-round match with his finger strapped. Galloway and India’s Yuki Bhambri put up a fight before going down to the fourth seeds, Spain’s Marcel Granollers and Argentina’s Horacio Zeballos 4-6, 6-3, 6-7 (4-10), in two hours and 12 minutes on Monday.Bhambri and Galloway fought back from 2-5 in the decider but were outplayed by the fancied Spanish-Argentinian pairing in the match tie-break, where they jumped to a 7-0 lead. The Indo-American duo couldn’t do much in the opening set but broke in the sixth game of the second and took a 4-2 lead.The American was broken in the fourth of the third set when a Bhambri volley went deeper than the Indian hoped it would go, and the 16th seeds fell back 1-3 and then 2-5. Bhambri and Galloway won the next three games to climb back into the match.With Bhambri’s exit the Indian challenge at SW19 comes to an end. Going forward, the 33-year-old Indian will partner Kiwi Michael Venus. Bhambri admitted the plan was long term when he signed up with Galloway in mid-April. They started together in Munich in mid-April and have played 10 tournaments together. After bowing out in the first round in their first three tournaments, they stepped down a level briefly to play a Challenger event, and made the final of the ATP 250 Series event in Mallorca coming into Wimbledon.
“Mike was available, he is one of my closest friends on Tour,” Bhambri said, “At some point eventually we were always going to play together and this was an opportunity that we finally had. It just made sense.”The 37-year-old has known Bhambri since his teenage days. “When he (Venus) started playing doubles, I was sort of the initial partner,” said Bhambri, “We obviously had our first Grand Slam together, which has still been our best result to date in Australia, making the third round.”
