Top Indian doubles player Rohan Bopanna will today contest for his first ever Grand Slam title. The 2010 US open finalist in the men’s doubles looks to be in with quite the chance in the mixed doubles here; he’s had quite the successful season with partner Gabriela Dabrowski, who is ranked 20th in the women’s doubles.
The two made the quarter-finals of the Australian Open this year, and Bopanna has also been having a strong clay court season in the doubles. With partner Pablo Cuevas, the Indian won the title at the clay-court Monte Carlo Masters this year.
Both partners have been most successful at the mixed doubles with each other.
Today, they take on Anna-Lena Groenefeld of Germany and Colombia’s Robert Farah in the doubles.
Farah is a renowned doubles specialist, and with longtime doubles partner Juan Sebastian Cabal is in the semi-finals of the men’s doubles.
Groenefeld, although she started out as a singles specialist, has been most successful in the mixed doubles; she won Wimbledon in 2009 with Mark Knowles, and more recently the French Open in 2014 with doubles expert Jean-Julien Rojer.
With Robert Farah, Groenefeld last year made big inroads. The pair finished runners-up at Wimbledon last year, and then the semi-finals of the US Open, losing to eventual runners-up CoCo Vandeweghe and Rajeev Ram of the USA. That alone gives them more experience on the Grand Slam stage – but they are unseeded here, while Bopanna and Dabrowski are the No. 7 seeds.
Interesting Fact: Robert Farah, in only his second Grand Slam – at Wimbledon in 2011, defeated the then- World No. 5 pair – Rohan Bopanna and Aisam ul-Haq Qureshi.
Based on combined rankings alone, we’re likely to give this one to Bopanna and Dabrowski. It would be the first ever Grand Slam title across disciplines for either player.
Indian players have done very well in the mixed doubles at the French Open. Most recently, Leander Paes won the title with Martina Hingis last year, making the pair defending champions; they lost out early this year, in the Round of 32. His marked the country’s third title there – with Mahesh Bhupathi taking the trophy twice, first in 1997 with Japan’s Risa Hiraki, and in 2012 with Sania Mirza.
