Wimbledon 2023: Bopanna-Ebden advance to 2nd round

London: India’s Rohan Bopanna and his Australian partner Matthew Ebden advanced to the second round of the men’s doubles event of the Wimbledon after overcoming the Argentine duo of Guillermo Duran and Tomas Etcheverry, here.

Seeded sixth at the grass court Grand Slam, the Indo-Australian tennis pair beat the unseeded Argentine duo 6-2,6-7,7-6 in the opening round match, which lasted for two hours and 12 minutes on Friday night.

The 43-year-old Bopanna and Ebden, who paired up to win two doubles titles on the ATP Tour earlier this year, will play the unseeded British pair of Jacob Fearnley and Johannus Monday next in the second round on Sunday.

Notbaly, Bopanna-Ebden won the Qatar Open in February and the ATP Masters 1000 Indian Wells title in March. Apart from the men’s double, Bopanna is also taking part in the mixed doubles in Wimbledon and he will be in action with Canada’s Gabriela Dabrowski on Saturday. The sixth-seeded Bopanna and Dabrowski, who won the French Open mixed doubles title in 2017, will start their campaign against the unseeded duo of Ivan Dodig of Croatia and Latisha Chan of Chinese Taipei.

Meanwhile, Indian tennis players Yuki Bhambri and Saketh Myneni will also start their men’s doubles campaign on Saturday. The two Indians, who made a last-minute entry into Wimbledon as alternates, will face Alejandro Davidovich Fokina of Spain and Adrian Mannarino of France in the opening round.

Another Indian pair of Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan and N. Sriram Balaji will also start their men’s doubles campaign on Saturday. Having made the main draw as alternates, the Indian duo will take on second seeds Austin Krajicek of the USA and Ivan Dodig. However, there are no Indian players in the singles category at Wimbledon this year. Ankita Raina was the sole Indian in the singles qualifiers, where she was ousted in the opening round.