File photo of Rohan Bopanna© AFP
Roquebrune-Cap-Martin (France):
Indian ace Rohan Bopanna and Ben Shelton’s men’s doubles campaign at the Monte Carlo Masters ended in the quarterfinals after losing to Monegasque Romain Arneodo and partner Manuel Guinard on Friday. The Indo-American duo came back from a set down but lost in the super tiebreak with the scoreline 6-2, 4-6, 10-7. This was Bopanna’s sixth quarterfinal appearance at the Monte-Carlo Masters, a title he famously lifted in 2017. Bopanna-Shelton rallied to a 2-6, 7-6(4), 10-7 second-round victory against third seeds Simone Bolelli and Andrea Vavassori that featured a topsy-turvy match tie-break to make it to the quarterfinals. After his first-round win over Francisco Cerundolo and Alejandro Tabilo, Bopanna became the oldest player ever, in either singles or doubles, to win a match at the ATP Masters 1000 level at the age of 45 years and one month.
He broke the previous record held by Canadian legend Daniel Nestor, who was 44 years and 8 months old when he won a match at the 2017 Madrid Masters, ironically, against Bopanna himself, who was then partnering with Pablo Cuevas.
In singles, the oldest player to win a match at the ATP Masters 1000 level is Croatia’s Ivo Karlovic, who beat India’s Prajnesh Gunneswaran at the age of 40 in Indian Wells in 2019.
Last year, Bopanna made history by becoming the oldest man in the Open Era to win a major men’s doubles title on Saturday, teaming up with Australian Matthew Ebden to win the Australian Open.
The run also helped Bopanna to become the oldest first-time World No.1 in doubles. In March last year, Bopanna, partnering with Ebden, became the oldest ATP Masters 1000 champion at the Miami Open.
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