Tennis: Bautista Agut beats Safiullin in Barcelona
he Spaniard, who is chasing his 12th ATP Tour crown this week, will meet seventh seed Karen Khachanov in the second round.
Rohan Bopanna of India and Matthew Ebden of Australia advanced quickly to the US Open 2023 men’s doubles final on Thursday after defeating Nicolas Mahut and Pierre-Hugues Herbert of France in straight sets.
At the Louis Armstrong Stadium in New York, the sixth-seeded Indo-Australian team prevailed 7-6(7-3), 6-2 in the tennis match in one hour and 34 minutes. Mahut and Herbert have won the Grand Slam five times each.
Bopanna, a 2017 French Open mixed doubles champion, is yet to claim a significant men’s doubles crown. He had reached the finals on a previous occasion in the 2010 US Open in which he reached the title clash along with Pakistan’s Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi.
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Rohan Bopanna reached a Grand Slam final in the Open era at the age of 43 years and 6 months. Daniel Nestor of Canada, who was 43 years and four months old when he participated in a major final at the 2016 Australian Open, was the previous record holder.
Bopanna and Ebden will face third seeds Rajeev Ram of the USA and Joe Salisbury of Great Britain in the US Open 2023 men’s doubles final on Friday at Arthur Ashe Stadium. Ram and Salisbury are the reigning champions of the men’s doubles event at the US Open.
Bopanna and Ebden have already won two championships this year: the Indian Wells in March and the Qatar Open in February. In July, the pair advanced to the Wimbledon semifinals. Rohan Bopanna won the ATP Masters 1000 championship at Indian Wells, making him the oldest tennis player ever to do it.
Bopanna’s career’s lone Grand Slam victory came in the mixed doubles competition at the 2017 French Open, where he teamed up with Gabriela Dabrowski of Canada.
Along with Sania Mirza, an Indian who later announced her retirement from tennis, he had also advanced to the Australian Open’s mixed doubles finals earlier this year.
Together with Timea Babos, he had also advanced to the Australian Open mixed doubles final in 2023. He and his Indonesian partner Aldila Sutjiadi had registered for the mixed doubles competition at the 2023 US Open. In the next round, their run came to an end.
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