Marcus Willis’ Wimbledon journey is over for another year after he and doubles partner Jay Clarke were beaten in the men’s doubles by Oliver Marach and Mate Pavic.
The pair both lost in the final round of singles qualifying, but received a wildcard to enter the main draw for the doubles.
And they produced one of the shocks of the tournament, dumping out reigning champions and second seeds Pierre-Hugues Herbert and Nicolas Mahut on Saturday evening, but today proved a step too far.
The Brits were beaten in straight sets on Court 14, losing 6-3, 6-4, 7-6.
Former Wimbledon boys champion Pavic, 24, and veteran Austrian Marach came into the tournament as 16th seed.
And they broke Clarke/Willis as early as the fourth game. Break point openings were hard to come by and from falling 1-3 behind, Wokingham’s Willis and teenager Clarke never looked like working their way back into set one.
Set two also passed by completely without the home duo earning a break point opportunity. Marach/Pavic only had one chance to break themselves, but they took it to move 3-2 ahead and controlled the set from there to win it 6-4.
The first two games of the third set were held to love before a Willis volley at the net saved a break point in the third game to keep the set on serve.
While they were managing to hold, Clarke/Willis could not even score a point on the Marach/Pavic serve in their first three games of set three.
But they finally carved out two break point opportunities at 4-3, seeing them both saved to keep the set in the balance.
A tie-break eventually beckoned and after falling 4-0 behind it was a mountain to climb for Clarke/Willis. They battled to reduce the arrears to 4-2 but went down 7-3 to exit at the last 16 stage.
Clarke/Willis scores first:
SET ONE: 0-1, 1-1, 1-2, 1-3, 1-4, 2-4, 2-5, 3-5, 3-6.
SET TWO: 1-0, 1-1, 2-1, 2-2, 2-3, 2-4, 3-4, 3-5, 4-5, 4-6.
SET THREE: 1-0, 1-1, 2-1, 2-2, 3-2, 3-3, 4-3, 4-4, 5-4, 5-5, 6-5, 6-6, 6-7.
