Indian tennis ace Rohan Bopanna will be crowned as the World No 1 in men’s doubles after reaching the semifinals of the Australian Open along with his partner Matthew Ebden on Wednesday. Bopanna will be the oldest player to become World No 1, beating the record set by USA’s Rajeev Ram, who reached the ranking summit in October 2022 at the age of 38.
The 43-year-old Bopanna paired with Ebden to brush aside the sixth seeds from Argentina Máximo González and Andrés Molteni in straight sets 6-4, 7-6 (5) in a quarterfinal that lasted an hour and 46 minutes. Up next for Bopanna and Ebden are the unseeded Tomas Machac and Zhizhen Zhang.
Bopanna will thus become only the fourth Indian after Leander Paes, Mahesh Bhupathi and Sania Mirza to take the world number one rank in doubles.
“It’s been an incredible 20 years playing this tournament week in, week out, and today, reaching the No 1 ranking, it’s an extremely amazing and proud feeling. It probably hasn’t sunk in fully yet but still credit to the entire team. These last 13 months have been an incredibly consistent kind of a year. I am proud to be where I am today, at the ranking of no. 1. So, India needed this, Indian tennis needed this. I am really happy to be representing India across the world in this tennis journey. There’s so much love and support from the entire country for two decades. I am thankful for all the support. I think, this is from my side, giving back to everyone in India,” Bopanna was quoted as saying after his quarter-final victory.
“World No.1 looks good on you, Bopsy. Thanks for always inspiring us,” tweeted Sumit Nagal, who himself scripted history at the ongoing Australian Open after reaching the second round by defeating 27th seed Alexander Bublik, thereby becoming the first Indian since Ramesh Krishnan in 1989 to beat a seeded player in the singles main draw of a Grand Slam.
In the past, Bopanna has claimed the mixed doubles title at the French Open in 2017 partnering Canada’s Gabriela Dabrowski. But in men’s doubles at Grand Slams, he has come close to securing it twice, before narrowly missing out: he was the runner-up at the US Open in 2010 with Pakistan’s Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi and with Ebden last year (where he had become the oldest-ever Grand Slam finalist). According to the reports published in indianexpress.com .
It must be noted that Bopanna is the oldest player to claim a men’s doubles title at a Masters 1000 event: achieving the feat in 2023, aged 43, when he paired with Ebden to win the prestigious Indian Wells tournament.
