Paris [France], May 31 : The French Open 2023 men's doubles competition, which was taking place at the Roland Garros Stadium in Paris on Wednesday, saw Indian tennis veteran Rohan Bopanna and his Australian partner Matthew Ebden lose in the opening round.
The sixth-seeded Indo-Australian team was eliminated after falling to Sadio Doumbia and Fabien Reboul of France 7-5, 7(7)-6(5) in one hour and 39 minutes, as per Olympics.com.
In the ATP doubles rankings, Rohan Bopanna, who recently rose to No. 9, and Matthew Ebden, who is ranked No. 17, got off to a fast start against Nos. 46 Fabien Reboul and 47 Sadio Doumbia.
The tennis team from India and Australia won the opening game of the first set by breaking. However, a few unforced errors in game two and a double fault in game twelve proved to be their downfall as they eventually fell behind 1-0.
In the second set, neither team was able to get a break. When serving in the 12th game, Bopanna and Ebden played well to avoid several match points and move the set into a tiebreaker.
But Sadio Doumbia and Fabien Reboul got out to a strong start in the tiebreaker, winning it 7-5 to advance to the next round.
The duo of Rohan Bopanna and Matthew Ebden won the Indian Wells Masters in March by defeating Wesley Koolhof and Neil Skupski, who is currently ranked No. 1 in the world.
In February, Bopanna and Ebden won the Qatar Open as well. The 2017 French Open's mixed doubles champion was Gabriela Dabrowski of Canada and Rohan Bopanna. He would not play in mixed doubles this year, though.
The local wildcard tennis team of Arthur Rinderknech and Enzo Couacaud were easily defeated by Yuki Bhambri and Saketh Myneni of India 6-3, 6-2 in their opening-round match at the French Open.
Yuki Bhambri and Saketh Myneni also won their first Grand Slam match together. They entered the Australian Open 2023 as wildcards but were eliminated in the first round.
The Indian team had a strong start and nearly broke the French team in game two. In the fourth game, Yuki Bhambri and Saketh Myneni finally discovered the opening and took a 1-0 lead in the match.
The Indian team won the first two games of the second set to swiftly build a substantial advantage. Strong returns from Yuki Bhambri and Saketh Myneni proved to be too much for the French couple, who were unable to match the passion of the Indian combo.
The victory enabled the Indian team to advance to a second-round matchup against world No. 20 Santiago Gonzalez of Mexico and former French Open men's doubles champion Edouard Roger-Vasselin of France.
N Sriram Balaji and Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan of India, who were entered in the main draw as alternates, were defeated 6-3, 6-4 by Ilya Ivashka and Alexei Popyrin of Australia in the opening round.
Ankita Raina, the lone Indian participant in the singles category and bronze medalist from the Asian Games, bowed out after falling to Japanese world No. 145 Moyuka Uchijima in straight games.
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