Bopanna-Qureshi pair loses first match after reunion
The Hindu
The 'Indo-Pak pair' of Rohan Bopanna and Aisam ul Haq Qureshi lost its first match after rejoining forces, bowing out of the ATP 500 event here on Wednesday.
Up against second seeds Bruno Soares and Jamie Murray, the unseeded Indo-Pak team lost 7-6(4) 2-6 1-10 in the opening round of the USD 1204960 hard court tournament. After trailing 0-7 in the Super Tie Breaker, it was an enormous task for them to pull back.Unlike most of the Olympic-bound athletes, who opt to train abroad before the big event, boxer Amit Panghal prefers training in home conditions prior to Paris 2024. A former World championships silver medallist and a World No. 1, Panghal won the 51kg quota place in the only chance he got. He wants to follow his own plans to script success in Paris.
The other men’s semifinal Friday is Norway’s Casper Ruud, twice the runner-up in Paris — to Rafael Nadal in 2022 and to Novak Djokovic in 2023 — against Germany’s Alexander Zverev, a finalist at the 2020 U.S. Open, an Olympic gold medalist and into the final four at Roland Garros for the fourth consecutive year.