Picture by 2024 Getty Images
India’s tennis campaign at the Paris 2024 Olympics ended on Sunday after both Sumit Nagal and the pair of Rohan Bopanna and N Sriram Balaji lost their respective opening round matches at the Roland Garros Stadium.
The unseeded Bopanna-Balaji lost their men’s doubles match 7-5, 6-2 to Frenchmen Gael Monfils and Édouard Roger-Vasselin in 76 minutes.
Earlier in the day, world No. 80 Sumit Nagal went down 6-2, 2-6, 7-5 in a hard-fought match against France’s Corentin Moutet, ranked 68th, in a little under two and half hours.
This was the second meeting between the two players. Nagal had beaten Moutet when they last went head-to-head in an ATP 250 clay court tournament in Marakkech, Morocco in April.
Nagal, who was also unseeded in Paris, was making his second appearance at the Summer Games. He reached the second round of the men’s singles event at Tokyo 2020.
In the doubles match, the first break went to Monfils-Edouard in the fifth game, but the Indian tennis players broke back instantly. Both teams held the serves in the next few games, but the French duo took the set with a decisive break towards the end.
The host team continued the aggression in the second set, clinching an early break off Balaji’s serve. Backed by a packed house, the French pair continued the momentum and secured another break to wrap up the game and match.
Fabien Reboul was supposed to pair up with Édouard Roger-Vasselin in this match, but a late injury for Reboul saw Gael Monfils step up in his place.
Bopanna, who won the Australian Open men’s doubles title earlier this year, made his third appearance at the Summer Olympics, while his partner Balaji made his debut.
At 44, Bopanna was the oldest Indian athlete of the Paris 2024 contingent.
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