Yuki Bhambri went through to the second round with his American partner Robert Galloway but it was not to be for India veteran Rohan Bopanna at the 2025 Wimbledon Championships on Wednesday. Bhambri and Galloway, who are seeded 16th, beat Romain Arneodo of Monaco and Manuel Guinard of France 7-6(8), 6-4 in a first-round match that lasted one hour and 49 minutes.
Meanwhile, Bopanna and his Belgian partner Sander Gille lost to German third seeds Kevin Krawietz and Tim Puetz 3-6, 4-6 in straight sets to bow out in the opening round. Rithvik Choudary Bollipalli and his Colombian partner Nicolás Barrientos came from behind and then survived a long tie-break in the deciding set to beat Belgian David Goffin and Frenchman Alexandre Muller 4-6, 6-4, 7-6 (11).
Arneodo and Guinard went toe-to-toe with Bhambri and Galloway for much of the first set, eventually forcing it to go into a tie-break. That remained the case in the tie-break as well but the Indian-American pair persevered and prevailed. However, they managed to get a break in the seventh game of the second set and then closed it out.
Bhambri and Galloway will next take on the winner of the match between the Dutch combination of Robin Haase and Jean-Julien Rojer and American Marcos Giron and Nuno Borges of Portugal in the next round. Bopanna, who had won the 2024 French Open men’s doubles title and the 2017, struggled along with his partner Gille to keep up with Krawietz and Puetz.
Bollipalli and Barrientos saved as many as four match points to prevail over Muller and Goffin. Their second-round match will be against either the sixth-seeded British pair of Joe Salisbury and Neal Skupski or wildcards Joshua Paris and Charles Broom.
Another Indian N Sriram Balaji and his Mexican partner Miguel Reyes-Varela will also be in action in the men’s doubles and will take on Aleksandar Kovacevic and Learner Tien in the opening round.
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