Rohan Bopanna and Matt Ebden survived a big scare against the alternates Sriram Balaji and Miguel Anges Reyes-Varela, coming back from a set down to eventually win 10-8 in the final set tiebreak.
Bopanna shared his thoughts after the match, speaking about Bala’s performance, his Olympics partner selection, and more:
Q) How proud were you of Bala (Balaji) today? You were playing a match to win, but he’s someone you’ve been mentoring for a while now
Bopanna – Extremely proud. It shows that he belongs at this high level. That self belief has been there, but sometimes you speak about it from outside, but it has to come from within. He is starting to believe that and today it clearly showed. He was playing extremely good tennis, serving really well, and that’s his capability. He’s very explosive as a player that’s good for doubles, and he can definitely do much better than what his current ranking is. This year he’s understanding that, and I am extremely proud that he took the chance to come here and made the third round.
Obviously, it’s never easy to lose in a third set tiebreak, I’ve been on the other side many a times (laughs). Of course, when it came to that tiebreak, till then they had nothing to lose and you are playing freely. But suddenly think you have a chance and there’s pressure. Those are the situations where we made sure we got our first serves in and played the point differently. I think with only watching this match and going to the coaches and working on it, he can keep his head high and be proud of the way he played.
Q) Will this match and Bala’s run here help decide your partner for the Olympics?
Bopanna – To be honest, it has nothing to do with this match or who I am going to be playing with. I spoke with both Scotty (Davidoff, his coach) and Balu (Balachandran M), who’s been working with Yuki (Bhambri) and Bala (Balaji) in the beginning of the tournament, and I worked out some pros and cons for both cases. And it has nothing to do with the result of the tournament here. We’ll speak about it at the end of the tournament again and decide. At the end of the day, I do have a choice but the selection committee can overrule that as well.
Since I’m playing here now, there’s no hurry to mention it. When there’s a decision, I will send an email to AITA (All India Tennis Association) and they can decide what the next steps are.
Q) You and Matt (Ebden) have had two tough matches. What’s the feeling like?
Bopanna – Number one thing is I am extremely proud of myself that I have been able to play three tough matches in a span of 50 hours. Playing that mixed doubles yesterday definitely helped me be more match sharp. We have extremely tough opponents in the quarter-final against Gille/Vliegen. We lost a close match to them in Indian Wells this year. They love playing on clay: made the Roland Garros final last year, won Monte-Carlo Masters this year. They are a team that’s been playing great tennis. We need to play our A-game to beat them, we will really struggle with anything less. At the end of the day, Grand Slams bring out the best in both myself and Matt. It’s the self-belief that takes us through on some occasions.