Western and Southern Open: Rohan Bopanna-Denis Shapovalov crash out in first round of men’s doubles event

Indian tennis star Rohan Bopanna and his Canadian partner Denis Shapovalov suffered a huge blow as they knocked out of the Western and Southern Open after slumping to straight sets defeat in the opening round of the men’s doubles event on Monday.

Playing their first competitive match since COVID-19 halt, Bopanna and Shapovalov went down fighting 4-6, 6-7(1) against 2019 US Open runner-ups Marcel Granollers and Horacio Zeballos in a thrilling first-round clash of the USD 42,22,190 hard court tournament.

The first-round match kickstarted with the Indo-Candian pair being in a neck-and-neck fight against Spain’s Granollers and Argentina’s Zeballos until the seventh game of the first set.

The score was levelled at 3-3 when Bopanna and Shapovalov was eventually broken to hand the fifth-seeded Spanish-Argentinian pair an early lead.

Zeballos and Granollers then held their nerves to take the opening set 6-4.

In the second set, Bopanna and Shapovalov showcased a much better performance as they won all their service games to take the set to the tie-breaker.

The Indo-Canadian pair, however, failed to capitalise on the same and was broken in the first, fourth and the eighth serves to eventually make the first-round exit in the tournament.

It was the first match for Bopanna since March this year when he and his Indian compatriot Leander Paes played a Davis Cup clash against Croatia.

Notably, the Western and Southern Open is usually played in Cincinnati, but the organisers were earlier forced to move the event to New York in the wake of coronavirus pandemic.

The tournament is serving as the build-up to the US Open, which will be the first Grand Slam of the year amid COVID-19 crises and which will take place from August 31.