By Philip James
Pierre-Hugues Herbert / Nicolas Renavand (wc) def Ken Skupski/Johan Brunstrom (3) 7-6(5), 7-5
Ken Skupski suffered a disappointing defeat in the men’s doubles in Bordeaux today.
Playing in the BNP Paribas Primrose Bordeaux clay-court Challenger, he and Swedish partner, Johan Brunstrom lost in straight sets, 7-6(5), 7-5 in just under an hour and a half.
Skupski and Brunstrom, ranked 67th and 54th in the world respectively, were seeded third for the tournament but came undone against Pierre-Hugues Herbert and Nicolas Renavand.
Awarded wild cards as players from the hosting country, the pair are both ranked outside the top 200 in singles and outside 150 in doubles.
But the home favourites broke first in the match and led for most of the first set.
Skupski and Brunstrom pegged their opponents back to force a tie-break but the French pair took it, seven points to five.
In the second set, the third seeds struggled to make an impact in the return game, winning only six receiving points.
Herbert and Renavand only won 12 themselves, that was enough to break once and they served out to win the set and the match.
Skupski has partnered Brunstrom before, mainly back in 2011 when they won a Challenger tournament together.
Brunstrom had great success playing with Raven Klassen for the first part of this year winning two Challenger tournaments including Quimper where they beat Skupski and Jamie Delgado in the final.
In between those two titles, they also reached an ATP 250 final in Montpellier, again beating Skupski and Delgado as well as Colin Fleming and Jonny Marray on the way.
Klassen is not currently playing while Skupski and Delgado have decided to play separately.
Delgado, who partners Samuel Groth in Bordeaux, was due on court right after Skupski but their match was rescheduled for tomorrow.