French Open tennis: Rohan Bopanna reaches maiden semis at Roland Garros
Rohan Bopanna and Matwe Middelkoop came from a set down to win the quarter-final in a super tiebreak.
Indian tennis player Rohan Bopanna and his Dutch partner Matwe Middelkoop continued their splendid run at the French Open 2022 by reaching the men’s doubles semi-finals on Monday.
The Indo-Dutch pair, seeded 16th, came from a set down to pull off a thrilling 4-6, 6-4, 7-6 (10-3) win over England’s Lloyd Glasspool and Harri Heliovaara of Finland at the Roland Garros Stadium in Paris.
This will be Bopanna’s maiden semis appearance at the French Open and his first Grand Slam semi-final since Wimbledon 2015.
Bopanna made it to a Grand Slam doubles semi-final thrice in his career before. The Indian tennis player had previously reached the last four at Wimbledon twice (2013, 2015) and made the final of the 2010 US Open.
The 42-year-old Rohan Bopanna and Matwe Middelkoop, 38, matched their opponents point for point in the first set but lost the serve in the penultimate game to concede the opener.
The Bopanna-Middelkoop pair, however, fought back in the second to level the score and force a decider.
The pair’s best performance came in the third set when they were only one game away from losing the match. The Indo-Dutch duo won three straight games to go from trailing 3-5 to leading 6-5.
Lloyd Glasspool and Harri Heliovaara made it 6-6 to take the match into a super tie-break.
Rohan Bopanna and Matwe Middelkoop were down 0-3 but rallied back with 10 straight points to win the super tiebreak and, with it, the match in two hours and four minutes.
The two had defeated Tokyo 2020 Olympic champions Nikola Mektic and Mate Pavic of Croatia in their previous match.
Rohan Bopanna and Matwe Middelkoop will now face 12th-seeds Dutchman Jean-Julien Roger and Marcelo Arevalo of El Salvador on Thursday for a place in the final.
Rohan Bopanna is the last Indian tennis player to win a Grand Slam title when he won the French Open mixed doubles crown with Canada’s Gabriela Dabrowski in 2017.
Leander Paes is the last Indian to lift a men’s doubles trophy. He won the 2013 US Open with Radek Stepanek of the Czech Republic.
Rohan Bopanna and his Slovenian partner Andreja Klepac were ousted from the Roland Garros mixed doubles in the second round.
Meanwhile, Sania Mirza and Lucie Hradecka will play the third round of the women’s doubles against Americans Jessica Pegula and Coco Gauff on Tuesday.