Boulter and Watson among Britons to exit doubles

Katie Boulter and Heather Watson were among the British players to exit the doubles competition in the first round at Wimbledon.

As Arthur Fery became the only home player to reach the third round of either singles draw at the All England Club on Thursday, all six doubles pairings featuring Britons suffered defeats.

Boulter and Watson survived four match points in a 22-point second-set tie-break but eventually fell to a 6-4 6-7 (12-10) 6-3 loss against Poland's Katarzyna Piter and Czech Anna Siskova.

Olivia Nicholls and Slovakian team-mate Tereza Mihalikova, the 12th seeds, were beaten 6-2 7-6 (7-3) by Czech duo Miriam Skoch and Jesika Maleckova.

Jodie Burrage and Mika Stojsavljevic also fell to a straight-set defeat, losing out to the 10th seeds Kristina Mladenovic, of France, and China's Hanyu Guo 6-3 7-5.

Teenager Mimi Xu and Alicia Dudeney lost 6-3 6-4 against former French Open champion's Hsieh Su-wei, of Taiwan, and China's Wang Xinyu.

Harriet Dart and Maia Lumsden exited in a 6-3 6-4 loss to Indonesian players Aldila Sutjiadi and Janice Tjen, while Madeleine Brooks and Amelia Rajecki were beaten 6-4 6-2 by seventh seeds Laura Siegemund, of Germany, and Russian Vera Zvonareva.

Defending champions Julian Cash and Lloyd Glasspool, top seeds Henry Patten and Finnish team-mate Harri Heliovaara, fifth seeds Neal Skupski and American Christian Harrison, and the pairing of Marcus Willis and David Stevenson have each progressed to the second round of the men's doubles competition and return to action on Friday.