Routliffe, Guarachi lose in three sets at Wimbledon

Erin Routliffe and her Chilean partner Alexa Guarachi went down 6-7 6-7 6-2 to Irina-Camelia Begu from Romania and Ukraine’s Anhelina Kalinina in the first round of the ladies doubles at Wimbledon on Friday.

While the first two sets were tight, Begu and Kalinina, who are both singles specialists, took their game to another level in the deciding set, which Routliffe and Guarachi weren’t able to match.

But things did look promising for Routliffe and Guarachi early on, as they went up 3-1 in the opening set, with Routliffe, who served fourth, becoming the first player to hold serve. 

Guarachi was broken again, in the sixth game, to take the score to 3-3, and the rest of the set stayed tight, although with both teams still having trouble holding serve, and eventually the set moved into a tiebreak.

This was where Routliffe and Guarachi came into their own and won it 7-2.

The second set was just as close, but without as many breaks of serves, and again it went to a tiebreak.

Routliffe and Guarachi went up 5-2 in it, but the only won one of the next seven points, losing the set.

Routliffe was broken in the sixth game of the deciding set and they weren’t able to get that break back. 

The match eventually ended on a bad note, with Guarachi double faulting twice at 0-30 and 4-5.