Australian Open 2024 tennis: Resilient Bopanna-Ebden pair makes men’s doubles final

India’s Rohan Bopanna and his Australian partner Matthew Ebden overcame People’s Republic of China’s Zhang Zhizhen and his Czech partner Tomas Machac in the super tiebreak to make the Australian Open 2024 men’s doubles final on Thursday.

Playing at Melbourne Park, Rohan Bopanna-Matthew Ebden, the second seeds, defeated their unseeded but in-form opponents 6-3, 3-6, 7(10)-6(7) in the semi-final that lasted two hours and two minutes.

Bopanna and Ebden, who have been on top of their service game this Australian Open, held their serves and broke Machac in the fourth game to win the first set.

Zhizhen and Machac broke Ebden in the fourth service game to clinch the second set and draw level but eventually lost the match in the third set after a super tiebreak.

This will be the first men’s doubles final for Rohan Bopanna at the Australian Open and third in Grand Slams. He had reached the men’s doubles final of the 2010 US Open with Pakistan’s Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi and the 2023 US Open with Ebden but lost on both occasions.

The Indian tennis player, whose only Grand Slam title came at the 2017 French Open in mixed doubles, has featured in the Australian Open final in 2018 and 2023 but in mixed doubles.

This will also be a second successive Major final for Bopanna and Ebden, having made the final of the US Open last year. The 43-year-old Indian is set to become the oldest No. 1 player in men’s doubles history and could also become the oldest tennis player to win a Grand Slam in the Open Era if he lifts the trophy on Saturday.

Bopanna is also the oldest tennis player to reach a Grand Slam final, breaking his own record from the US Open last year.

In the final, Bopanna and Ebden will be up against the Italian unseeded pair of Simone Bolelli and Andrea Vavassori.