Zimbabwe tennis ace Benjamin Lock missed out on a first title of the year after he lost in the ITF Egypt F2 doubles decider in Cairo on Saturday.
Teaming up with Polish Daniel Michalski, the pair had a good run in the competition only to falter on the last hurdle.
The pair suffered a heartbreaking 7 – 6 7 – 6 tie-break defeat to Ray Ho from Taiwan who partnered Grigoriy Lomakin from Kazakhstan.
Lock and Michalski were the top seeds while Ho and Lomakin were seeded second in the competition.
It was a better performance in the double competition for Lock who crashed out in the first round after pairing with Vladimir Uzhylovsky in the ITF Egypt F1 event last week.
A known doubles specialist, Lock has struggled in singles in Egypt failing to beyond the quarterfinals in both events so far.
The 28-year-old fell at the hands of Russian Andrey Chepelev 6 – 4 6 – 3 in the last eight of the singles category while another Russian Denis Klok was his nemesis in straight sets at the same stage in the previous event.
Lock, an integral member of the country’s Davis Cup team, is Zimbabwe’s highest-ranked tennis player in the ATP World Rankings in both the singles and doubles.
