Rio 2016: Bhupathi reacts to Paes' ignominious first round loss

Leander Paes and Rohan Bopanna faced a shock first round exit at the Rio Olympics on Saturday and as expected former tennis player Mahesh Bhupathi was not at all pleased with the outcome.

Incidentally, Bopanna initially wanted to play with Saketh Myneni and not Paes in the men's doubles encounter, just like Bhupathi did in the 2012 London Olympics, when he took the court alongside Bopanna. However, AITA forced Bopanna to select Paes as his partner but the two had only one competitive outing before the Rio tie and that too in a Davis Cup match against a lowly Korean side. 

Paes arrived in Rio on August 4 while the rest of the tennis contingent had checked in on August 1. So he couldn't practice with Bopanna and as a result  saw his campaign get over in only 84 minutes as not for once did the Indian pair look like having forged a winning combination. They were outclassed by their Polish rivals Marcin Matkowski and Lukasz Kubot 4-6 6-7 (6-8).

Bhupathi, whose friendship with Paes has deteriorated over the years, didn't hide his feelings after the match. He tweeted, "So frustrating" which encapsulated India's performance on court and also in other disciplines.

So frustrating....

— Mahesh Bhupathi (@Maheshbhupathi) August 6, 2016

The controversies leading upto the first round match also did not do any good to the pair as there was a distinct lack of on-court chemistry between them. Ironically, at 43 Paes has possibly played his last Olympic match and too bad that it ended in whimper within two days of his arrival in the Brazilian city despite the bang that it created due to the off-court events in the lead up to the quadrennial extravaganza.