Rome, May 14 (IANS): Indo-Romanian tennis players Rohan Bopanna and Florin Mergea lost their men's doubles second round match to Dutch-Romanian combine of Jean-Julien Rojer and Horia Tecau on the outdoor clay courts of the Foro Italico here on Thursday.

Bopanna and Mergea, who won the Madrid Open title last week, lost 2-6, 7-5, 8-10 in an hour and 25 minutes in their first career meeting against the third seeds. After sharing the first two sets, it all boiled down to the super tie-break where Rojer and Tecau proved a tad bit better.

Overall, Bopanna and Mergea were as good as their opponents on their service games but they suffered when it came to return points where they did not earn as many points as they would have liked to. Also, as many as seven double faults at crucial junctures of the match proved to be a major cause for their loss.

Leander Paes, partnering Canadian Daniel Nestor, and Sania Mirza, with Swiss Martina Hingis, play their matches later in the day.