CHENNAI: When Divij Sharan and Rohan Bopanna take to the court to face Austin Krajicek and Dominic Inglot at the Stockholm Open on Tuesday, they will invariably turn eyes. With the Olympics less than a year away, that’s just natural. But India’s two best doubles players — if rankings are anything to go by — haven’t had the greatest time of it when playing as a pair this year.
Even though they clinched the Maharashtra Open earlier this season — it was the first time they had played as a pair — they have struggled to win matches when playing together. Out of the seven tournaments they have teamed up in, they have failed to pass the first round in five, a worrying trend. While Sharan didn’t acknowledge this as a concern, he said there will be an onus on teaming up more in the future with an eye on the Olympics.
“I always enjoy playing with Rohan, and I’m looking forward to playing in Stockholm,” he said. “We will try to play some tournaments next year as well as and when we get a chance.” An immediate need for one of the pair is to get into the top 25 — Bopanna is World No 41 and Sharan is World No 43. The Delhiite explained why this was the case. “It’s too early to predict what the cut off for the Olympics will be but it would help us if we can move up in the rankings. It’s important for us to play the biggest events. Even if one of us goes deep in a Masters event, it would improve our combined rankings for the Olympics.”
The 33-year-old has acutely faced this problem this year. He has played only one of eight Masters in 2019 (Monte Carlo). He acknowledges that it’s a problem and wants to address it by the time 2020 rolls around.
“I have missed out on playing most of the ATP 1000s so ideally, I would like to move up in the rankings by another 10-15 spots. More and more singles players are opting to play doubles so the cut-offs for the tournaments have been stronger this year.”
He’s taken a positive step towards achieving that short-term goal. Sharan, as of this moment, is the only Indian doubles player to have won two ATP World Tour titles in 2019 (Pune and St Petersburg with Igor Zelenay). “It’s been a good season so far, it’s the first time that I have won two tour events in one season. I will be happy if I can finish the year by doing well in the last few tournaments.” And that run begins in the Swedish capital on Tuesday.