French Open 2024: Rohan Bopanna, Matthew Ebden advance to second round with hard-fought win

Rohan Bopanna and Matthew Ebden overcame a stiff challenge from Brazilians Orlnado Luz and Marcelo Zormann in a three-set battle to advance to the second round of the ongoing French Open on Sunday.

The second-seeded pair Indo-Australian pair, who had won the Australian Open earlier this year, fought their way to a 7-5 4-6 6-4 over the Brazilians in a contest lasting two hours and seven minutes.

Zormann and Luz entered as an eighth alternate pair, their participation cleared by a flurry of withdrawals. The Brazilians, however, threatened to pull off an upset victory over Bopanna and Ebden before the latter were able to channel their combined experience into shifting the momentum of the contestin crucial stages.

The second seeds raced to a 4-1 lead, riding on a double break but the Brazilian put up a great fight to reel off four straight games to make it 5-5 in the opening set.

From there on, the Indo-Australian combine found a way to break Luz with Bopanna firing his returns from the baseline and Ebden supporting him with well-timed volley winners. The Australian served out the set with ease.

Zormann was broken in the opening game of the second set with Ebden and Zormann locking in a intense baseline rally in which the Brazilian erred on 30-40 to hand the advantage to the seeded team.

More drama followed, as now Bopanna was down 0-40. He saved the first two break chances with some accurate serving but Zormann blasted a winner on the third to make it even steven.

Ebden’s serve came under tremendous pressure in game four that featured six deuce points in nine intense minutes. The Australian finally held the serve with an overhead smash.

Ebden was put under pump again when he returned to serve in game eight. He began with a double fault and then hammered one forehand return on the net. Luz dispatched a volley winner at net on Ebden’s return on the next point to earn plenty of break chances.

The second seeds saved the first but Ebden double faulted again as the Brazilians led 5-3.

Luz came out to serve for the set and parity and had four set points to finish it but Bopanna was splendid — both at net and from baseline — as the second seeds broke again to bounce back.

However, the Indian dropped serve for the third time in the match and it was one-set all.

A break of serve in the fifth game gave Bopanna and Ebden advantage and they did not squander the chance this time with the Indian closing out the match.

With PTI inputs