Emma Raducanu and Katie Boulter beaten in the doubles at Queen's
The duo, who have been bestowed the portmanteau 'Boultercanu', earlier this week described the 'spontaneous' nature of their decision to pair up ahead of this tournament.
After booking their place with a straight-sets opening victory over Wu Fang-Hsien and Jiang Xinyu on Monday, they faced a much tougher test in the top-seeded doubles pair.
It was a third-ever doubles match for 2021 US Open champion Raducanu, who at one point clashed rackets with British number one Boulter as the played together for just the second time.
Boulter battled through her grass court singles season opener to claim a 7-6 (4) 1-6 6-4 victory over Australian qualifier Ajla Tomljanovic on Tuesday, and the first-serve issues that plagued her in that gritty battle seemed to remain somewhat unresolved when she double-faulted to open the second game.
The Britons' task was made even trickier after they were broken by the top seeds, but were getting a better read on the ball by the time they claimed their first win of the set to make it 3-1.
But they could not find the response they needed to their increasingly-clever opponents – particularly the prowess of Kiwi Routliffe – and were unable to dig their way out after Raducanu opened the set-decider with a double-fault of her own.
Their opponents swiftly claimed the first game of the second set to hold before Boulter and Raducanu – after an amusing pause to remove an insect crawling along the baseline with a towel – made it 1-1.
The Britons' serve – this time Raducanu's – was broken again early on in the set.
Kichenok and Routliffe began to cruise a bit more and, far more vocal in their communication, looked the more organised pair, though Boulter and Raducanu were still all smiles, and received an especially encouraging round of applause as they took the court again at 4-1 down.
The British pair looked to be growing into the contest, breaking back for the first time in the match to reduce the deficit to 4-3 before drawing level.
They nearly made it three games in a row, but their rivals recovered from 40-0 to secure the hold, eliciting the first real groan from a section of the home support.
Boulter and Raducanu were given a gift when Routliffe was deemed to have doubled-faulted – briefly challenging the umpire – with the set level at 5-5, but they could not take advantage.
The 'Boultercanu' doubles dream, at least for now, ended as the serving Raducanu could not force a tiebreak and the Kiwi-Ukrainian pair booked their place in the semis with another break.
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