Melbourne, 24 January 2011 | Eloise Johnstone

Rennae Stubbs may have played her last Australian Open match after her and partner Chris Guccione lost 5-7 6-4 [10-5] today to Meghann Shaughnessy and Andy Ram.

The 39-year-old has had much success at Melbourne Park and was Australian Open 2000 mixed and women’s doubles champion, however, did not progress past the second round in either mixed or women’s doubles this year.

Stubbs is still the world No.14 for doubles, and will represent Australian in the upcoming Fed Cup meet against Italy.

Today’s match was payback time for Andy Ram, who was bundled out of the men’s doubles by Guccione, who is partnered by Carsten Ball.

Stubbs and Guccione played inspired tennis to pounce on the Shaughnessy serve when she was serving at 5-6 in the first set.

However, they were broken early in the second and failed to recover from there.

It was better news for fifth seeds Anastasia Rodionova and Zimbabwe’s Cara Black, who defeated U.S. pairing Raquel Kops-Jones and Abigail Spears in straight sets,  6-4 6-2.

Their third round win sets them up for a quarterfinal clash with third seeds Liezel Huber and Nadia Petrova, who easily accounted for Alexandra Dulgheru and Magdalena Rybarikova.

There are no Australian’s left in the men’s doubles, after Guccione and Ball succumbed to second-seeds Max Mirnyi and Daniel Nestor in the third round, and Adam Feeney and Colin Ebelthite were defeated by Polish fifth-seeds Mariusz Fyrstenberg and Marcin Matkowski.

In the second round of the mixed doubles, Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Horia Tecau easily accounted for Sophie Ferguson and Marinko Matosevic 6-1 6-2.

Up next for Mattek-Sands and Tecau are another Australian pairing, Sally Peers and Ball, who progressed through to the third round after their opponents, top seeds Liezel Huber and Bob Bryan, declared a walkover.

And Australia’s most successful doubles combinations, Todd Woodbridge and Mark Woodforde have continued on their winning ways when they beat Guy Forget and Mats Wilander in the Legend’s Doubles match.

The Woody’s recorded a 6-2 2-6 1-0(3) win, reminiscent of their old days at the top of the sport.