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From India there was not much representation in the Wimbledon Grand Slam tournament 2025. The campaign for the Indians, who went to participate also ended in a rather dismal way at the championship on Monday, July 7. The most experienced doubles player in the contingent, Rohan Bopanna suffered an unexpected first-round loss which marked his early and disappointing exit from the tournament. Sumit Nagal, one of India’s top-ranked singles’ players could not make it past the qualifiers, which resulted in India not getting represented in the singles category either. The players who went this year also could not make any mark, and got eliminated.
The last of Indians to crash out from Wimbledon this year was Yuki Bhambri. He put up a valiant fight with his American partner Robert Galloway before bowing out in the third round of the Wimbledon men’s doubles on Monday. The 16th seed pair pushed their fourth-seeded opponents, Marcel Granollers of Spain and Horacio Zeballos of Argentina, to a limit but couldn’t end on the right side of the result, losing 4-6, 6-3 and 6-7 (10) in a gruelling contest that lasted for two hours and nine minutes.
Yuki and Galloway had progressed to the second round with a 7-6 (8) and a 6-4 win over Romain Arneodi of Monaco and Manuel Guinard of France. Bhambri was India’s best performer with round of 16 appearances in both men’s and mixed doubles. In the mixed doubles he partnered with People’s Republic of China’s Jiang Xinyu, but he bowed out from the mixed doubles competition on Sunday.
Balaji and Bollipalli also fall short in tight encounters
Indian tennis players N Sriram Balaji and Rithvik Bollipalli, playing with different partners, crashed out of the men’s doubles event in the second round. Balaji and his Mexican partner Miguel Reyes-Varela also faced a formidable challenge against Granollers and Zeballos. The unseeded pair created several resilient moments, but failed to convert it into something fruitful, and as a result they were beaten in straight sets, 4-6, 4-6.
Later on the same day, Rithvik Bollipalli and his Colombian partner Nicolas Barrientos put up a commendable performance against the sixth-seeded British pair of Joe Salisbury and Neal Skupski, but narrowly lost 4-6, 6-7(9) in one hour and 47 minutes.
In 1999, Mahesh Bhupathi and Leander Paes were the first Indians to win the men’s doubles titles at the Wimbledon Championships. The pair had reached the finals of both Australian Open and French Open, winning the latter, that year and entered the Wimbledon draw at the No.1 seeds. They beat Paul Haarhuis/Jared Palmer (6-7(10-12), 6-3, 6-4, 7-6(7-4)) to lift their and India’s maiden Wimbledon title. Sania Mirza in 2015 became the first Indian woman to win the Wimbledon title, and is the only Indian woman to win a Wimbledon title till date. She and Swiss legend Martina Hingis teamed up to win the women’s doubles title after defeating Ekaterina Makarova/Elena Vesnina 5-7, 7-6(7-4), 7-5).
