London: India’s Rohan Bopanna and his Canadian partner Gabriela Dabrowski suffered an early exit from the Wimbledon 2023 tennis tournament as they lost their opening match in the mixed doubles event on Sunday. The sixth-seeded Indo-Canadian pair, who clinched the French Open mixed doubles title in 2017, were defeated 6-7 (5-7), 6-3, 6-4 by the unseeded team of Ivan Dodig from Croatia and Latisha Chan from Chinese Taipei. Dodig and Chan had previously won the Wimbledon mixed doubles championship in 2019.
The match, which started on Saturday but was interrupted by rain and completed on Sunday, lasted two hours and six minutes. Bopanna and Dabrowski fought hard but ultimately couldn’t overcome the challenge posed by their opponents.
Meanwhile, Indian players Yuki Bhambri and Saketh Myneni also faced disappointment as they lost their opening round match in the men’s doubles event. Bhambri and Myneni, who entered Wimbledon as alternates, were defeated 6-4, 4-6, 6-4 by Alejandro Davidovich Fokina from Spain and Adrian Mannarino from France in a match that lasted just over two hours.
In another men’s doubles encounter on Saturday, the Indian duo of Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan and N. Sriram Balaji were eliminated in their opener. They faced a tough challenge against the second-seeded pair of Austin Krajicek from the USA and Ivan Dodig, eventually losing 7-6 (7-5), 6-4. Nedunchezhiyan and Balaji, also entering the main draw as alternates, succumbed to defeat in a rain-interrupted match lasting one hour and 35 minutes.
With Bopanna’s loss in the mixed doubles, the 43-year-old becomes India’s last remaining hope at Wimbledon. Bopanna, partnering with Australia’s Matthew Ebden as the sixth seed, will face the unseeded British duo of Jacob Fearnley and Johannus Monday in the second round on Monday.
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