Tennis was considered to be a bright medal prospects, particularly in the mixed doubles category. Sania Mirza-Rohan Bopanna reached the semifinal but in the end could not get even a Bronze.
They lost 6-2, 2-6, 3-10 to USA’s Venus Williams-Rajeev Ram in the semi. They still had a shot for Bronze in the play-off, but the duo failed to recover from the semifinal disappointment and went down 1-6, 5-7 against Radek Stepanek and lucie Hradecka of the Czech Republic.
Yuki Bhambri, ASICS player, explains. “It is difficult to play after a loss. Once you’ve lost a semifinal, mentally you have to be prepared to play the next match. As we saw in the first couple of games, they weren’t really ready. It was still a great performance — they lost in super tie-breaker. A couple of points here and there make a difference,” Bhambri said.
“We all expected a medal from mixed doubles and believed that was the real shot we had. Men’s doubles and women’s doubles were always going to be very difficult. We came agonisingly close to getting a medal. It would have definitely hurt Sania and Bopanna to come to the semifinal and not get a medal in those two matches,” he explained.
Asked if playing together in other tournaments could have helped them better, Bhambri did not agree. “I don’t think so because in mixed doubles you play four times a year. You have opportunities at Grand Slams and the Olympics. It is a bit of smaller draw and it’s bit of lottery. You could never pick out a team and say this is the one that is favourite to win,” he said.
The Bopanna-leander Paes duo was doomed from the start as there were too many pre-campaign niggles between them and their pairing but the first round loss to Polish pair of Marcin Matkowski and lukasz Kubot 4-6, 6-7 (6-8) was a bit of a shock.
“It was always going to be tough. But India did send the best two doubles players of country,” Bhambri felt.
But fact is, the off-field controversy did not help. Prior to the Olympics it was reported that Bopanna preferred to team up with Saketh Myneni. Then, Paes reached Rio late and the duo hardly spent any time together and lacked field chemistry.
Asked if the off-field controversy got the better of them, Yuki said he did not agree. “But the first round loss was a tough loss. It wasn’t a one-sided loss — it was a 6-4, 7-6 loss. I don’t think that any of the controversies really made much of a difference. Once you are on the court, you tend to forget everything around and focus only on the match,” he opined.
Women’s doubles hope of a medal also ended in the very first round when Sania Mirza and Prarthana Thombare lost 6-7, 7-5, 7-5 to Chinese pairing of Shuai Zhang and Shuai Pengs. “It was good that they gave a fight. She (Thombare) did well in her first Olympics. She would have learned a lot playing with Sania. Hopefully, in next Olympics we will see a more experienced, a much better Thombare,” he said.
Yuki also added that it will be difficult to bank on the next Olympics as the qualification for the summer extravaganza will purely depend on the individual’s rankings. For doubles, the player should be within top-50 and for singles they should be in top-16 to qualify for Olympics.