Bopanna, Middelkoop win doubles title in Tel Aviv

India's Rohan Bopanna and his Dutch partner Matwe Middelkoop lifted the ATP 250 Tel Aviv Watergen Open doubles title, beating the Mexican-Argentine pair of Santiago Gonzalez and Andres Molteni 6-2, 6-4 in the final on Sunday.

After a trophy-less 2021, this is the 42-year-old Bopanna's third title of the season, after winning on the hard courts of Adelaide and Pune at the start of the year partnering compatriot Ramkumar Ramanathan. The win is expected to push Bopanna, world No 22 in the doubles individual rankings, to the top 20 on Monday.

Bopanna and Middelkoop were top seeds in Tel Aviv and the final was their most clinical outing. The pair was forced to dig deep in the three matches leading up to it, pulling off the Round of 16, quarter-final and semi-final in super tiebreakers after losing the first set in each of them.

“In the final, they played to their level. In the previous rounds, they didn’t quite play well but found a way to win,” Balachandran Manikkath, who travelled with Bopanna as his coach in Tel Aviv, said. “In the previous rounds, they didn’t start well and dropped their serves early but came out playing better in the tiebreaks and super tiebreaks. They managed to pull off those close situations. That also gave them the edge in the final.”

The Indio-Dutch pair has had some solid outcomes playing together this season. They reached the semi-finals of the French Open before losing a close contest to Marcelo Arevalo and Jean-Julien Rojer; they also made the final of the ATP 500 Hamburg and the semi-finals in Washington in July and August. Their opening-round exit at the US Open to Italians Lorenzo Sonego and Andrea Vavassori was a surprise.

Ramkumar makes main draw

Ramkumar qualified for the singles main draw at the ATP 500 Japan Open, beating second-seeded Swede Elias Ymer 5-7, 6-4, 6-1 in the second qualifying round on Sunday. The India No 1 will face Japan's Rio Noguchi in the opening round.

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