Wimbledon: Rohan Bopanna in line for another ‘oldest’ record – Times of India

LONDON: There were no surprises for India when the International Tennis Federation announced the final player field for Paris 2024 at Wimbledon on Thursday.

Sumit Nagal (men’s singles) and the combination of Rohan Bopanna and Sriram Balaji (men’s doubles) made the cut for the quadrennial Games to be played on clay at Roland Garros, starting July 27.

It will be 44-year-old Rohan Bopanna’s third Olympic Games, after injury and form restricted his bid to play the Tokyo Games.

The Indian will be the oldest tennis player at Paris 2024 and the oldest male tennis player since tennis returned to the Olympics at Seoul 1988. Bopanna, who has been stacking ‘oldest’ records with the agility of a teenager, is older than Daniel Nestor (43 years 345 days) at Rio 2016.

He is also older than Leander Paes (43 years 58 days) at Rio 2016, making him the oldest Indian in the Olympic tennis field.

Martina Navratilova is the only player older than Bopanna (since 1988), the legendary American played the women’s doubles at Athens 2004, aged 47 years 309 days.

Paris will be the 24-year-old Nagal’s second-successive Summer Games, having made the cut for the Tokyo Olympics, where he fell in the second-round to Daniil Medvedev.

A total of 41 nations will be represented at the Olympic Tennis Event, with 184 players competing across five events — men’s and women’s singles and doubles and mixed-doubles.

Lebanon makes its debut in the competition with the 29-year-old Benjamin Hassan getting the nod for the universal place. The Germany-born tennis pro has an ATP career-high ranking of No.143 (June 2024).

Sixty-four players will compete in both singles events, while 32 teams will contest the two doubles fields. Entries for the 16-team mixed-doubles will be determined on Wednesday 24 July.

The men’s and women’s singles entries are headed by Jannik Sinner (Italy), Novak Djokovic (Serbia), Carlos Alcaraz (Spain), Iga Swiatek (Poland), Coco Gauff (USA) and Elena Rybakina (Kazakhstan). Returning to defend their Olympic titles are Alexander Zverev (Germany) plus the doubles teams of Nikola Mektic/Mate Pavic (Croatia) and Barbora Krejcikova/Katerina Siniakova (Czech).

Other former Olympic champions include two-time singles gold medalist Andy Murray (Great Britain) and Beijing 2008 doubles gold medalist Stan Wawrinka (Switzerland), both of whom receive ITF Places; and singles and doubles gold medalist Rafael Nadal (Spain).