Bopanna set to become oldest world No. 1 after reaching maiden Australian Open semi-final
Melbourne (PTI): India's Rohan Bopanna is set to become the oldest tennis player to achieve the World No. 1 ranking in men's doubles after reaching the semifinals of the Australian Open along with his partner Matthew Ebden here on Wednesday.
The 43-year-old, who had entered the tournament with a career-high ranking of world no. 3, and Australian Ebden recorded a comfortable 6-4, 7-6 (5) win over sixth seeded Argentinian duo of M ximo Gonz lez and Andr s Molteni in the quarterfinals that lasted an hour and 46 minutes here.
The second-seeded Indo-Australian pair will cross swords with unseeded Tomas Machac and Zhizhen Zhang in the semi-finals.
Bopanna will be crowned the new numero uno on Monday after the end of the tournament.
Earlier, Rajeev Ram of the USA was the oldest player to be ranked world no. 1 when he had achieve the top ranking in October 2022 at the age of 38 for the first time in his career.
Ebden, on the other hand, is set to reach the world no 2.
Bopanna, who had achieved the highest rank was world No. 3 for the first time in 2013, is the fourth Indian after Leander Paes, Mahesh Bhupathi and Sania Mirza to take the world number one rank in doubles.
He will take over the top position from USA's Austin Krajicek, who and his Croatian partner Ivan Dodig lost in the second round.
Bopanna won the mixed doubles title at French Open in 2017 alongside Canada's Gabriela Dabrowski. However, a title has eluded him in men's doubles, having finished runner-up twice at the US Open in 2010 with Pakistan's Aisam-ul-Haq Quresh and 2023 with Ebden.
In fact, Bopanna's feat at the US Open last year made him the oldest-ever Grand Slam finalist.
Bopanna is also the oldest player to claim a men's doubles title at a Masters 1000 event. He achieved the feat last year at the age of 43 with Ebden, winning the prestigious Indian Wells tournament.
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Sharad Pawar praised RSS after seeing how it burst fake narrative balloon of LS polls: Fadnavis
Nagpur, Jan 10: Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Friday said NCP (SP) chief Sharad Pawar praised the RSS after realising how the outfit managed to overcome the fake narrative spread by the opposition in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
The opposition had claimed BJP wanted to win 400 seats to change the Constitution and end reservations, a narrative which BJP leaders later claimed hit the party hard.
On Pawar praising the RSS recently, the CM said the MVA was successful in creating a fake narrative during the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
"When assembly polls were approaching, many people from diverse fields who are inspired by the RSS played their role and burst the balloon of this fake narrative. Sharad Pawar saheb is very intelligent. He would have certainly studied this aspect. He realised that this (RSS) is not a regular political power but a nationalist power. In any competition it is good to praise others," he added.
That is why Pawar may have praised the RSS, Fadnavis said.
Speaking at an interaction with senior editor Vivek Ghalsasi at Late Vilasji Fadnis Jivhala programme here, Fadnavis also said he had asked for organisational work when Eknath Shinde was made chief minister in June 2022, but senior leaders asked him to join the government.
He also said Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked him not to behave like an extra-constitutional authority in the government.
He said the decision to become deputy chief minister on the command of the party leadership earned him a lot of praise from the cadre.
After the massive mandate the ruling alliance received in the 2024 assembly polls, Fadnavis said people and party workers would not have been happy if the CM was not from the BJP.
Shinde himself agreed within minutes that the CM must be from the BJP, which itself got 132 seats and was close to a majority of its own in the 288-member assembly, he added.
On Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray meeting him during the winter sessions of the legislature in Nagpur, Fadnavis said he had announced he would not indulge in politics of revenge after becoming CM and all leaders responded positively to it.
On chances of the NCP (SP) and NCP coming closer or reuniting, Fadnavis said, "If you see the developments that took place from 2019 to 2024, I realised never say never and anything can happen. Uddhav Thackeray goes to some other party and Ajit Pawar comes to us. In politics anything can happen though I am not saying this should happen."
He praised BJP leader Arun Gujarati from whom he learnt patience, which he claimed was an important quality in politics along with the ability to take criticism.
In a lighter vein, he said, "I only get angry when I am hungry. If you see me angry then give me something to eat and my anger will go away."
