Four Indians make it to main draw of Wimbledon 2024
Four Indians will be taking part in the 2024 Wimbledon men's doubles event. They are Rohan Bopanna, Sumit Nagal, Yuki Bhambri, and Sriram Balaji, respectively.
Rohan Bopanna will team with his partner Matthew Ebden, while Sumit Nagal will share the court with Serbian Dusan Lajovic. On the other hand, Yuki Bhambri and Sriram Balaji will pair up with France's Albano Olivetti and British tennis player, Luke Johnson.
In the Wimbledon last time out, Rohan Bopanna alongside Matthew Ebden made it to the semifinals but unfortunately lost out to Wesley Koolhof (Netherlands) and Neal Skupski (United Kingdom).
Sumit Nagal on the other hand, who reached his career-high singles ranking of 71 on June 17, 2024, will be partaking in his first senior Wimbledon. Notably, back in 2015, Nagal along with his Vietnamese partner Ly Hoang Nam won the Junior Wimbledon doubles title by defeating Akira Santillan and Reilly Opelka in the final.
Yuki Bhambri, who like Sumit Nagal, reached his career-high ranking (doubles) of 51 on June 17, will make his return to Wimbledon after he suffered an opening-round loss to Thomas Fabbiano back in 2018.
Rohan Bopanna's Paris Olympics 2024 partner Sriram Balaji, who has decided to pair with Englishman Luke Johnson will be playing his first ever Wimbledon this time out.
India at the Wimbledon
The first Indian tennis players to take part in Wimbledon were Sirdar Nihal Singh in 1908 (men's) and Jenny Sandison in 1929 (women's). Notably, Sandison took part in the competition after 45 years of the women's category's inclusion in the event.
However, India's most dynamic and most featured tennis star at the grand stage is Leander Paes, who has appeared a record 138 times across men's singles, doubles, and mixed doubles categories. Moreover in 1999, Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi, the famous Bhu-Paes duo went on to become the first Indians to lift the Wimbledon doubles title. 16 years later, Sania Mirza got herself added to the list of champions, when she bagged the doubles title with her Swiss partner, Martina Hingis.