Rohan Bopanna's distance from men's doubles title in US Open continued. He could not realize his dream of winning the title by making it to the finals for the second time after 13 years. The pair of him and Ebden had to face defeat at the hands of Rajeev Ram and Joe Salisbury in the final.
The pair of Rajeev Ram and Salisbury have won the men's doubles title at the US Open for the third consecutive time. This is the sixth Grand Slam title of Rajiv Ram's career.
Even after the loss of Rohan Bopanna's pair, the Indian connection remained with the title, because Rajiv Ram is an American player of Indian origin. Rajiv Ram's father Raghav and Sushma both belong to Karnataka. Rajiv is second generation in America.
Rohan made it to the US Open men's doubles final for the second time but the result was against him like in 2010. Everyone expected that he would change the 13-year-old story by reaching the finals at the oldest age (43 years and six months). But fate remained angry with him.
For the first time, he reached the men's doubles final of the US Open in 2010 with the most successful partner of his career, Ehtisham Ul Haq Qureshi. But on that occasion also he had to face defeat. He paired with Pakistan's Ehtisham in February 2020 and won the ATP title in the form of SA Open. This year the pair was successful in making it to the quarter-finals of Wimbledon. This pairing continued in 2011 also. After this Rohan played in partnership with Mahesh Bhupathi.
Rohan once again paired up with Ehtisham in 2021. But this pair failed to spread the same shine as before. This was the year when he played in pairs with many players but success remained elusive. He could not progress beyond the first and second rounds in most tournaments.
The pair of Rohan Bopanna and Ebden made a great start. He succeeded in breaking Rajeev Ram's serve in the very first game. He was successful in winning the first set by breaking Salisbury's serve in the seventh game. But he failed to take advantage of this advantage.
Rajeev Ram's pair came back in full form after losing the first set and they targeted Bopanna's serve and were successful in making a comeback in the match by winning the set by a service break in the sixth game. If the Indian pair could have capitalized on even one of the three break points on Salisbury's service in the sixth game of the third set, they could have captured the title.
There was a tremendous competition in the final. When the Indian pair was trailing 2-4 in the third set, every point was important for them. But Bopanna showed sportsmanship and scored a point, which earned him a lot of applause.
Actually on this occasion Ebden won the point by hitting a winner. But Bopanna said that the ball touched his hand, hence the point belonged to Ram's team. The chair umpire checked and gave the points to Ram's team.
Rohan Bopanna was successful in winning his first Grand Slam title after 14 years of becoming a professional player. She won the French Open mixed doubles title with Dabrowski in 2017. By winning this title, he became the fourth Indian player to win a Grand Slam title. For India, Leander Paes has won 18, Mahesh Bhupathi 12 and Sania Mirza has won six Grand Slam titles.
Due to continuous poor performance in the year 2021, Rohan Bopanna also thought of retirement at one time. Regarding this, Bopanna says that I was sitting on the sea shore and saying to myself, what can I do, I can't even win the match.
This was not the only reason for thinking about retirement. He was also suffering from knee pain that had been going on for the last two years. He says that he had to take painkillers three times a day. But it is the result of somehow motivating himself to keep playing that he has reached this position today.
Sania Mirza played her last Grand Slam in the form of Australian Open this year and on this occasion her partner in mixed doubles was Rohan Bopanna. This pair could not make this Grand Slam memorable by winning the title. But after playing the final, a lot of applause returned.
The special thing is that when Sania Mirza was only 14 years old, she paired up with Rohan for the first time. This pair was successful in becoming the winner by playing mixed doubles in the DCM Shriram Open to be held in the capital New Delhi.
Rohan Bopanna says about Sania Mirza that she is a very inspiring player. He has subsequently played with Sania in the Asian Games, Olympic Games and Grand Slam tournaments and achieved many successes.
The biggest quality of Bopanna's game is his courage to not accept defeat. The biggest quality of Bopanna's game is the spirit of never giving up. In the semi-finals, he was trailing 2-4 by breaking service in the first set of Mahut's pair and he came back and won from here.
Bopanna was successful in winning last year's French Open after saving five points against Mate Pavic pair. Mate Pavic's pair had won the Wimbledon title. Big service is also a specialty of Rohan Bopanna's game. He has always been a fast server. Many times he is successful in putting pressure on the opposite pair with his service. Another specialty of Rohan's game is that he is successful in increasing the problems of the players in front by playing his shots on the line.
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