Indian tennis veteran Rohan Bopanna and his Australian partner Matthew Ebden crashed out of the opening round of the French Open at Roland Garros on Wednesday.
The sixth-seeded Indo-Australian pair was eliminated after falling to French duo Sadio Doumbia and Fabien Reboul 7-5, 7(7)-6(5) in one hour and 39 minutes.
Bopanna and Ebden got off to a fast start against Nos. 46 Fabien Reboul and 47 Sadio Doumbia, winning the opening game of the first set by breaking. However, a few unforced errors in game two and a double fault in game twelve proved to be their downfall as they eventually fell behind 1-0.
In the second set, neither team was able to get a break. When serving in the 12th game, Bopanna and Ebden played well to avoid several match points and move the set into a tie-breaker.
But Doumbia and Reboul got out to a strong start in the tiebreaker, winning it 7-5 to advance to the next round.
Among other Indians at the French Open, Yuki Bhambri and Saketh Myneni beat the local wildcard tennis team of Arthur Rinderknech and Enzo Couacaud 6-3, 6-2 in their opening-round match at the French Open.
The Indian team had a strong start and nearly broke the French team in game two. In the fourth game, Bhambri and Myneni finally discovered the opening and took a 1-0 lead in the match.
The Indian team won the first two games of the second set to swiftly build a substantial advantage. Strong returns from the Indian pair proved to be too much for the French duo who were unable to match the passion of the Indian combo.
The victory enabled the Indian team to advance to a second-round matchup against world No. 20 Santiago Gonzalez of Mexico and former French Open men's doubles champion Edouard Roger-Vasselin of France.
N Sriram Balaji and Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan of India, who were entered in the main draw as alternates, were defeated 6-3, 6-4 by Ilya Ivashka and Alexei Popyrin of Australia in the opening round.
Ankita Raina, the lone Indian participant in the singles category and bronze medalist from the Asian Games, bowed out after falling to Japanese world No. 145 Moyuka Uchijima in straight games.
