Hamburg Open: Bopanna and Balaji begin Olympic preparation with loss

Getting ready to represent India at the Paris Olympics, veteran Rohan Bopanna and N Sriram Balaji began their partnership with a tough loss in the opening round of the Hamburg Open on Thursday.

Bopanna and Balaji have never played together on the ATP Tour before.

The sixth-seeded Indian team lost 1-6 4-6 to unseeded German team of Jakob Schnaitter and Mark Wallner in the ATP 500 tournament.

Surprisingly, the Indians, who are very solid servers, did not win many points on first serves.

They dropped their serve thrice in the match and could not convert any of the three break point chances that they got.

Now Bopanna and Balaji have one more tournament to compete together before the Olympics. They will head to Umaag to play Croatia Open, which is an ATP 250 event.

Meanwhile, India’s No.1 singles player Sumit Nagal lost his pre quarter-final match at the Nordea Open in Bastad 4-6 2-6 to fourth seeded Argentine Mariano Navone. Had Nagal won this round, he could have had a possible face-off with the legendary Spaniard Rafael Nadal in the quarter-finals but the world No. 36 was too good for the Indian, who recently gained five places in the ATP rankings to move to career-best rank of 68.

Nagal, a clay court specialist has qualified for the singles event at Paris Olympics and this was his last tournament before the quadrennial extravaganza which begins in Paris from July 26.