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Tennis

Novak Djokovic's Wimbledon warm-up cut short

Novak Djokovic's preparations for the defence of his Wimbledon singles title were cut short after an injury to his doubles partner in Mallorca. The Serb and partner Carlos Gomez-Herrera had booked a place in the final but were forced to pull out because of an ankle injury to the Spaniard. They had beaten Oliver Marach and Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi 6-3 7-6 (7-4). Djokovic, who won the French Open earlier this month, has not played any grass-court singles before Wimbledon. The Grand Slam starts on Monday, when the world number one will launch his bid for a record-equalling 20th major singles title. "I don't think we expected to reach the finals," Djokovic, 34, had said after their semi-final victory. "All around, everything clicked quite amazingly in the last several days for us." Djokovic, who has 84 tour-level singles titles, had been chasing only his second doubles trophy after winning the Queen's title with Israel's Jonathan Erlich in 2010. The winners of the semi-final between fourth seeds Simone Bolelli and Maximo Gonzalez and second seeds Philipp Oswald and Marcus Daniell will now be crowned champions in Mallorca.