Willis & Clarke stun doubles champions – highlights & round-up
| Wimbledon 2017 on the BBC |
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| Venue: All England Club Dates: 3-16 July Starts: 11:30 BST |
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Britain’s Marcus Willis and Jay Clarke stunned defending men’s doubles champions Pierre-Hugues Herbert and Nicolas Mahut at Wimbledon.
Willis, 26, and 18-year-old Clarke registered an entertaining 3-6 6-1 7-6 (7-3) 5-7 6-3 win over the French duo.
The British pair sent down 18 aces and hit 26 winners as they outmuscled their opponents.
In the mixed doubles, top seeds Jamie Murray and Martina Hingis beat Britons Neal Skupski and Anna Smith 6-3 6-0.
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In a remarkable match on court three, wildcards Willis and Clarke fought back from a first-set deficit to put themselves in prime position.
They squandered three successive match points as the French pair forced a deciding set but an early break in the fifth set allowed the Britons to take control.
Supported by a lively crowd, the duo held their nerve to serve out the match and shock Herbert and Mahut. Willis stunned Wimbledon last year when, as a qualifier ranked 772 in the world, he reached the second round of the men’s singles.
Defending mixed doubles champions Heather Watson and Henri Kontinen beat Pakistan’s Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi and Germany’s Anna-Lena Groenefeld 6-1 6-3 in just 49 minutes.
It was the second doubles match of the day for Britain’s Watson, who lost her women’s doubles match with Naomi Broady to Belgium’s Kirsten Flipkens and India’s Sania Mirza 6-3 3-6 6-4.
Broady and her brother Liam suffered a straight set defeat to Czech pair Roman Jebavy and Lucie Hradecka, losing 6-4 7-5.
Jocelyn Rae and Ken Skupski ensured there was more British success in the mixed doubles as they beat Frenchman Edouard Roger-Vasselin and Czech partner Andrea Hlavackova 6-4 7-5.
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