Was forced to play singles and I am surprised with the outcome: Bopanna

INDIA BEAT SOUTH KOREA 4-1 in the Davis Cup tie that got concluded yesterday in Chandigarh. Leander Paes, Saketh Myneni and Ramkumar Ramanathan all chipped in with crucial wins to help India progress to the next stage. 

However, it was Rohan Bopanna’s rare appearance in the singles event that eventually became one of the highlights of the tie. After successfully partnering Leander to win the doubles event and taking India to safety, Rohan surprised everyone by playing the reverse singles tie on Sunday. 

Unfortunately, our singles specialist, Saketh Myneni who was exhausted after winning his marathon singles match on Friday, opted out of his second singles match and asked Rohan to chip in.

As reported by Indianexpress, the 36-year-old explained, 

“I guess I surprised myself. Saketh called me at 8 in the morning and told that he cannot play today. So the only option was to come out and play.” 

“I always enjoyed every time I played singles. But It has been a while since I played a singles match. The last time I played in singles was against Uzbekistan in 2012 and in a live rubber was in 2011. It took a while for me to get used to not only the movements or the court.” 

Rohan is a veteran these days on the ATP doubles circuit and the last time we saw him compete in the singles event was at the 2015 IPTL, during the Dubai leg. Now, the Bangalore lad will travel to Toronto to play the 1000 masters event before he teams up once again with Leander to represent India at Rio Olympics.