History was created on the 5th day of Wimbledon 2021 as 4 Indians took to the court for the first time in the history of the competition. The team of Sania Mirza and Rohan Bopanna is squaring off against the team of Ankita Raina and Ramkumar Ramanathan in the first round of the mixed doubles event on the 8th court.
The fixture was scheduled after Marton Fucsovics and Timea Babos, who play for Hungary, withdrew from the event. Interestingly, Raina and Mirza are teammates for Tokyo Olympics and they are up against each other in less than a month before the event.
The winner of the ongoing mixed doubles event will square off against Nicolas Mahut and Kristina Mladenovic, who play for France. The team of Mirza and Bopanna are leading in the ongoing contest.
Apart from the mixed doubles event, the 4 Indian tennis players are part of other events too. Mirza is part of the women’s doubles event. She made a winning return to Wimbledon and sailed into the second round along with Bethanie Mattek-Sands.
Ramanathan failed to qualify for the main round of the men’s singles event after he faltered in the final round of the qualifiers.
Raina couldn’t make it to the second round of the single’s event and has been ruled out of the women’s doubles event. A defeat in the ongoing contest will mark an end of her participation, altogether, at the Wimbledon.
Bopanna and Divij Sharan couldn’t make it to the men’s doubles event. The ongoing mixed doubles event is Bopanna’s only medal hope now.
After the Wimbledon, the Indian tennis stars will land in Tokyo for the quadrennial games. Sania and Raina are part of the India squad. There will be no male tennis star in the competition for the first time since 1992.