look news india
Turin, 30 October (Hindustan Times). Indian tennis star Rohan Bopanna and his Australian partner Matthew Ebden have qualified for the men's doubles event at the ATP Finals 2024, which will be played at the Inalpi Arena in Turin, Italy from November 10 to 17.
The ATP Finals is the men's tennis championship held at the end of the season. It consists of two separate tournaments – a singles and a doubles.
Only the top eight ranked singles players or doubles teams of the year qualify to play in the ATP Finals – often considered the biggest men's tennis event on the ATP Tour after the four Grand Slams.
Wesley Koolhof/Nikola Mektic, Kevin Krawietz/Tim Puetz, Harry Heliovara/Henry Patton, Marcelo Arevalo/Mate Pavic, Marcel Granollers/Horacio Zeballos, Simone Bolelli/Andrea Vavassori and Max Purcell/Jordan Thompson are the other seven doubles pairs that qualified for the Turin ATP Finals. Has qualified for 2024.
Qualification for the tournament is based on the ATP Finals Rankings, which take into account performance at ATP events in the respective calendar year.
Bopanna and Ebden's qualification for 2024 was confirmed after the exit of Nathaniel Lemons and Jackson Withrow at the Paris Masters. Bopanna and Ebden have had a stellar 2024 season, which started with victory at the opening Grand Slam of the year – the Australian Open.
With the win in Australia, Bopanna became the oldest world No. 1 player in tennis history. The Indo-Australian pair also won the Miami Open this year and reached the semi-finals of the French Open apart from making it to the final in Adelaide.
This will be Bopanna's fifth appearance in the ATP Finals after 2011, 2012, 2015 and 2023. The Indian tennis player made the finals in 2012 and 2015, first with compatriot Mahesh Bhupathi and then with Romania's Florin Merzea, but lost on both occasions.
Bopanna, who retired from the Indian national team earlier this year after a first-round exit in the men's doubles event at the Paris 2024 Olympics, had also made it to the semi-finals with Ebden last year.
In his first ATP Finals campaign in 2011, Bopanna partnered Pakistan's Aisam ul Haq Qureshi, but the famous Indo-Pak Express failed to progress beyond the group stage.