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The duo of India’s Rohan Bopanna and his Australian partner Matthew Ebden was knocked out in the men’s doubles round of 16 at the Monte Carlo Masters on April 10. They were beaten by Croatia’s Mate Pavic and Marcelo Arevalo of EI Salvador with scores of 3-6, 6-7 (6-8). Bopanna and Ebden struggled to find a rhythm at the start of the match but the top-seeded pair were quickly pegged behind in the first set and failed to recover from there.
However, Bopanna and Ebden made a comeback in the second set but the opponents were too strong and sealed the win in the tie-break. Despite their efforts, the Indo-Australian combo was unable to overcome the strong performance of Pavic and Arevalo as they crashed out in the second round.
Nagal's match interrupted due to rain
Meanwhile, in the men’s singles, Indian tennis player Sumit Nagal was behind in his second round against Denmark’s Holger Rune. The match was suspended due to rain. The unseeded Nagal had lost the first set 3-6 and trailed 1-2 against seventh-seed Rune in the second when rain interrupted the match at the Roquebrune-Cap-Martin clay court.
Despite the setback, Nagal entered the match with impressive form as he beat eighth-seed Falvio Cobolli in the qualifiers and third-seed Facundo Diaz to advance to the main draw. Nagal had already made headlines as he secured a surprising win in the first round of the main draw against world no. 38 Italian Matteo Arnaldi with scores of 5-7, 6-2, 6-4.
The win was historic for Nagal as he became the first Indian to win a main draw at the Monte Carlo Master after beating Arnaldi. It also marked the first time an Indian won at one of the three Masters 1000 events held on clay. The series began in 1990. Having recently received a career-high ranking of No. 93 in the ATP rankings, Nagal has joined the elite list of Vijay Amritraj (in 1977) and Ramesh Krishnan (in 1982) as the third Indian to compete in the main draw in Monaco.
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