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MAKE HOMEPAGE
NEW YORK, - French Open champions Daniel Nestor of Canada and Serbian partner Nenad Zimonjic closed out a disappointing hardcourt season Sunday with a 6-3, 6-4 third-round loss to Rohan Bopanna of India and Pakistan's Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi at the U.S. Open.
The defeat marked the end of a bitter summer for the second seeds, who failed to get past the quarter-finals of any event since lifting the Paris title three months ago.
Nestor also won a mixed doubles match with American partner Bethanie Mattek-Sands, 6-7 (7), 6-2, 1-0 over France's Aravane Rezai and Rajeev Ram of the United States.
"It helped only a bit winning in mixed," said Nestor, who will play a full schedule with Zimonjic for the remained of the season in hopes they can cure their problems. "We didn't have any rhythm out there.
"When we're playing like this, I don't move my feet. It happens to both of us, we're not playing to win, we're short on confidence."
Nestor and Zimonjic went out in the Wimbledon second round after winning the title in the previous two years and also won just two matches in New York. The pair played quarter-finals in Toronto and New Haven but were eliminated in the Cincinnati Masters first round.
The second seeds showed their continuing rust in the match-up with the cross-border Asian pairing, who have put aside age-old political animosity between their nations to play on the ATP.
Nestor, from Toronto, and Zimonjic own five title this season but have hit the wall since winning Paris.
"When you are winning you don't feel the pressure," said Nestor. "We have to just try and work it all out. We had hopes for the summer but they didn't work out. We need to gain some confidence. We've just had a few bad weeks. We want to try and fix this and will have to work it out this fall."
