India’s tennis campaign at the Paris 2024 Olympics came to a disappointing end on July 29. Rohan Bopanna and N Sriram Balaji were knocked out of the men’s doubles tennis Paris 2024 event after a straight-sets defeat in the first round. They lost 7-5, 6-2 to the French pair of Gael Monfils and Edouard Roger-Vasselin in a match that lasted 1 hour and 16 minutes on Court 14 at Roland Garros Olympic tennis.
The French duo capitalized on two of their three break-point opportunities to secure the first set. Bopanna and Balaji struggled with 15 unforced errors, which hindered their performance. In the second set, Monfils and Roger-Vasselin broke the Indian pair’s serve twice, in the fourth and eighth games, to seal the victory. This result means that the French pair will now face the second-seeded German team of Kevin Krawietz and Tim Puetz in the next round.
Bopanna, who earlier this year won the Australian Open title with Matthew Ebden, may have played his last Olympic match as he has announced his retirement from Davis Cup.
Earlier on the same day, India’s only singles player, Sumit Nagal, also exited the tournament. He lost to Corentin Moutet in a hard-fought three-set match, 2-6, 6-4, 5-7, at Court 7. Despite an early lead in the decider, Nagal couldn’t maintain his advantage and fell to Moutet. This defeat marked another missed opportunity for India, which has won only one Olympic tennis medal—Leander Paes’ bronze in the 1996 Atlanta Games.
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