India’s Rohan Bopanna and Australia’s Matthew Ebden suffered a loss in their first match at the ongoing ATP Western & Southern Open Cincinnati Masters on Thursday.
The second seeds lost the first set of their second-round clash against France’s Arthur Fils and Chile’s Nicolas Jarry 4-6 before bouncing back to take the second in a tiebreak and force a deciding set.
Bopanna and Ebden, who won the Olympics men’s doubles gold medal with compatriot John Peers in Paris earlier this month, went up a mini-break on several occasions in the match tiebreak, leading 4-2, 7-5 and 8-6. But the French-Chilean duo made a last push and won four points in a row to complete the 6-4, 6-7, 10-8 win in one hour and 33 minutes to move into the quarter-finals.
Fifth consecutive doubles loss for Bopanna heading into the US Open
Bopanna/ Ebden had received a first-round bye and were looking for their first win in the summer hardcourt swing on the ATP Tour. The pair, who won the Australian Open in January, suffered the same fate in Montreal last week as they went down to Jan Zieliński/ Hugo Nys in a match tiebreak.
For Bopanna, this was his fifth consecutive loss since reaching the second round at Wimbledon. Prior to his back-to-back losses in the North American hardcourt swing, he also lost his opening matches in Hamburg and at the Paris Olympics.
Bopanna and Ebden will next be in action at the US Open Grand Slam, where they are defending runner-up points from 2023.
The Sportz Planet Desk,
Haresh Ramchandani
