Rohan Bopanna and his Australian partner Matthew Ebden suffered defeat in the Paris Masters final, an ATP 1000 event, on Sunday and missed the chance to become the World No. 1 pair in men’s doubles.
Bopanna and Ebden, third seeds, lost 2-6, 7-5, [7-10] to the seventh-seeded Mexican-French duo of Santiago Gonzalez and Edouard Roger-Vasselin in an hour and 30 minutes in the summit clash. Victory would have helped the Indo-Australian duo overtake the Croatian-American pair of Ivan Dodig and Austin Krajicek at the top of the ATP men’s doubles team rankings.
This is fifth loss in a final this season for Bopanna and Ebden. They also finished runner-up in Rotterdam, Madrid, Shanghai and at the US Open.
The duo began the partnership in Adelaide at the start of the year and got success for the first time when they won an ATP 250 event in Doha. They also clinched the title at Indian Wells where the 43-year-old Bopanna became the oldest ATP Masters 1000 champion.
The Indo-Australian pair will next compete at the season-ending ATP Finals, which will be held in Turin from November 12 to 19.
In the Challenger in Ismaning, Germany, Sriram Balaji won the doubles title in partnership with Andre Begemann of Germany. It was a commendable effort by coach M Balachandran, assisting the Indian players as part of the Doubles Dream project in Europe, as it was fourth title in as many weeks. Balaji himself was figuring in two of those triumphs.
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