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Indian tennis ace Rohan Bopanna and his Australian partner Matthew Ebden have qualified for the men's doubles event at the ATP Finals 2024 which will take place at the Inalpi Arena in Turin, Italy from November 10 to 17. The ATP finals is the season-ending men's tennis championship held annually. It features two separate tournaments - one for singles and one for doubles.
Only the top eight-ranked singles players or doubles teams from the year qualify to play in the ATP Finals - often considered the biggest men's tennis event on the ATP Tour after the four Grand Slams. Wesley Koolhof/Nikola Mektic, Kevin Krawietz/Tim Puetz, Harri Heliovaara/Henry Patten, Marcelo Arevalo/Mate Pavic, Marcel Granollers/Horacio Zeballos, Simone Bolelli/Andrea Vavassori and Max Purcell/Jordan Thompson are the other seven doubles pairs qualified for the Turin ATP Finals 2024.
Qualification for the tournament is based on ATP Finals rankings, which take into account performances in ATP events in the respective calendar year. Bopanna and Ebden's qualification was confirmed after Nathaniel Lammons and Jackson Withrow's elimination at the Paris Masters identified the doubles field for 2024. Bopanna and Ebden have had a fantastic 2024 season, which started with a victory at the opening Grand Slam of the year - the Australian Open. The triumph Down Under saw Bopanna become the oldest world No. 1 in tennis history.
The Indo-Australian pair also won the Miami Open this year and reached the semi-finals of the French Open besides making the final at Adelaide, This will be Bopanna's fifth appearance at the ATP Finals after 2011, 2012, 2015 and 2023. The Indian tennis player made the finals in 2012 and 2015, first with compatriot Mahesh Bhupathi and then with Romania's Florin Mergea, but lost on both occasions.
Bopanna, who retired from the Indian national team following a first-round exit in the men's doubles event at the Paris 2024 Olympics earlier this year, had also made the semi-finals with Ebden last year. On his debut ATP Finals campaign back in 2011, Bopanna had partnered Pakistan's Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi but the famed Indo-Pak Express failed to progress beyond the group stage. (ANI)