Rohan Bopanna becomes oldest tennis player to win an ATP World Tour Finals match

Rohan Bopanna (NBS, Wikimedia Commons)

The ATP World Finals are taking place in Turin, Italy this week. While the attention is normally centered around the action in singles, one doubles player is making headlines. That is India’s Rohan Bopanna.

On Wednesday according to Reuters Media, Bopanna became the oldest player ever to win a match in the ATP Finals at age 43, when he won with Australia’s Matthew Ebden. Bopanna and Ebden, the tournament’s third seeds, beat the all-Australian duo of Rinky Hijikata and Jason Kubler 6-4, 6-4. Bopanna set the record previously set by Daniel Nestor of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, who was 42 years old in 2014. Nestor and Nenad Zimonjic of Serbia defeated Marcel Granollers and Marc Lopez of Spain nine years ago in London, England, 6-7, 6-3, [11-9].

The Bopanna and Ebden tandem are a serious threat to win the title. On Friday they upset the second seeds, Wesley Koolhof of the Netherlands, and Neal Skupski of Great Britain, 6-4, 7-6. Bopanna and Ebden will now play Horacio Zeballos of Argentina and Granollers in the semifinals on Saturday. The other semifinal has Joe Salisbury of Great Britain and Rajeev Ram of the United States against Santiago Gonzalez of Mexico and Edouard-Roger Vasselin of France.

Bopanna has won one grand slam title in his career. That came in mixed doubles in the 2017 French Open. Bopanna teamed up with Gabriela Dabrowski of Canada to beat Anna-Lena Gronefeld of Germany and Robert Farah of Colombia 2-6, 6-2, [12-10]. Dabrowski made tennis headlines this past weekend as she was part of the Canadian team that won the 2023 Bille Jean King Cup in Spain.