India's campaign at the US Open 2022 tennis tournament came to an end early as Rohan Bopanna and Ramkumar Ramanathan made opening round exits from the final Grand Slam of the year. Bopanna, who featured in both men's and mixed doubles, lost both his opening round matches on late Thursday night.
In men's doubles, the 42-year-old Bopanna and his Dutch partner Matwe Middelkoop, seeded ninth in the tournament, lost to the unseeded Italian team of Andrea Vavassori and Lorenzo Sonego 6-7(2), 2-6.
Later, the veteran Indian tennis player, who won the French Open Grand Slam mixed doubles crown in 2017, paired up with China's Yang Zhaoxuan. The sixth-seeded Indo-Chinese pair went down 5-7, 5-7 to Australia's Max Purcell and Gabriela Dabrowski, a two-time mixed-doubles Grand Slam champion.
On the other hand, Ramkumar Ramanathan and his Serbian partner Nikola Cacic were outplayed 4-6, 4-6 by the Italian team of Simone Bolelli and Fabio Fognini, the 15th seeds in men's doubles.
The 27-year-old Ramkumar was also involved in the men's singles qualifiers of the US Open but failed to qualify for the main draw after losing 3-6, 5-7 to USA's Bruno Kuzuhara. Sumit Nagal and Yuki Bhambri also failed to make it past the qualifying rounds.
Bopanna and Ramkumar were the only two Indian shuttlers to compete in US Open 2022. Tennis ace Sania Mirza was also scheduled to play in this competition, but she pulled out at the last minute due to an injury.
"I have some not-so-great news, I hurt my forearm/ elbow while playing in Canada 2 weeks ago and obviously didn’t realize how bad it was until I got my scans yesterday and unfortunately I have in fact torn a bit of my tendon. This isn’t ideal and it is terrible timing and it will change some of my retirement plans but I will keep you all posted," she wrote on Instagram.
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