SHANGHAI: India’s star tennis player Rohan Bopanna and his Australian partner Matthew Ebden lost the final of Shanghai Masters 2023 men’s doubles tennis at the Qizhong Forest Sports City Arena on Sunday.
Bopanna and Ebden, however, earn a spot in the season-ending ATP Finals 2023, which will take place in Turin, Italy this November.
The pair, who earlier this year advanced to the Grand Slam final of the US Open, went down against Marcel Granollers of Spain and Horacio Zeballos of Argentina in the Shanghai final by 7-6, 2-6, and 7-10.
This was Rohan Bopanna’s third ATP Masters 1000 final of the year. The Indian tennis player, now 43, had partnered Ebden to win the Indian Wells Masters title back in March.
The victory also made Rohan Bopanna the oldest ATP Masters champion in tennis history, as per Olympics.com.
The Indo-Australian duo had also made it to the final of the Madrid Masters back in May but lost to Karen Khachanov and Andrey Rublev in the deciding match.
Bopanna and Ebden, the fourth seeds, faced stiff competition from Marcel Granollers and Horacio Zeballos.
Both teams managed to hold their respective serves in the first set before the Indo-Australian duo managed to get a decisive break point in the 12th game to take the lead.
Having dropped their first set of the tournament, Marcel Granollers and Horacio Zeballos, the seventh seeds, responded brilliantly and outplayed Bopanna-Ebden in the second to draw level.
With Marcel Granollers and Horacio Zeballos taking the first two points in the tie-breaker, Bopanna and Ebden were left playing catch-up before finally yielding the contest, which lasted just under 90 minutes.
En route to the final, Rohan Bopanna had downed the French pair of Fabien Reboul and Sadio Doumbia 7-6(0), 4-6, 10-2 via tie-break in the semi-finals.
The Indo-Australian duo had defeated Matwe Middelkoop-Andreas Mies, Karen Khachanov-Andrey Rublev and Marcelo Arevalo Gonzalez-Jean-Julien Rojer, the eighth seeds, in earlier rounds. (ANI)