 "Wimbledon: Bopanna-Ebden come from behind to reach Men's Doubles semis")
It was yet another day of the old getting the better of the young at Wimbledon 2023. The reference might take people to the Men's Singles match between Serbia's Novak Djokovic and Russia's Andrey Rublev that happened on Tuesday night. But this is about 43-year-old Rohan Bopanna from India and his 35-year-old Australian partner Matthew Ebden. The Indo-Aussie duo reached the semi-final of the Men’s Doubles after beating the Dutch pairing of Tallon Griekspoor and Bart Stevens in a three-set, come-from-behind thriller 6-7, 7-5, 6-2.
Bopanna and Ebden matched game for game in the first set but lost the tie-breaker 3-7. In the second set, they got the break in the very first game to lead 1-0, but in the very immediate game, their service was broken. The same process continued for games seven and eight and it was back to 4-4 after eight games.
The Indo-Aussie pair then broke once again in the eleventh game to lead 6-5. Ebden then served beautifully to win the 12th game 40-0 and thereby the set 7-5 to make it 1-1 at the end of the first two sets. While the first two sets saw fierce competition, the experience of Ebden and Bopanna got the better of the Dutchmen in the third as the latter could win only two games. Bopanna-Ebden won the set 6-2 and the game 6-7, 7-5 and 6-2 to move to the semis.
In the semis, the Bopanna-Ebden duo will face the top-seed pair of the Netherlands’ Wesley Koolhof and Britain's Neal Skupski.
Koolhof and Skupsi are the same pair against whom the Indo-Aussie duo lost in the quarterfinal of the Queen’s Club championship very recently. But this is also the duo against whom Ebden and Bopanna won in the quarterfinal of the Madrid Open (one of the three tournaments won by the Indo-Aussie pair). In Barcelona Open, Bopanna-Ebden lost to Koolhof-Skupski, but before that, they had beaten them in the Indian Wells Masters final. All this is the recipe for a great Men's Doubles semi-final between the two pairs on Thursday, July 13.