Monte-Carlo Masters: Rohan Bopanna becomes oldest player to win an ATP 1000 match

Indian veteran Rohan Bopanna and partner Ben Shelton advanced to the men's doubles round of 16 at the 2025 Monte-Carlo Masters ATP 1000 event on Sunday.

Bopanna, 45, became the oldest-ever player to win a match in an ATP Masters 1000 event. He surpassed the record held by Canada's Daniel Nestor, who won a match at the Madrid Masters in 2017 at 44 years and 8 months.

Bopanna and Shelton got the better of Francisco Cerundolo and Alejandro Tabilo 6-3, 7-5 in straight sets in the opening round of the competition.

The Indo-American pair did not have the best of starts as they were broken in just their second serve in the third game of the first set.

They, however, bounced back to break Cerundolo and Tabilo in the next game to equalise at 2-2.

The two pairs held their serves for the next three games before Bopanna-Shelton broke again to take a 5-3 lead. They then held their serve next to pocket the opening set 6-3 in 27 minutes.

The second set saw both Bopanna-Shelton and Cerundolo-Tabilo holding their own serves for the first ten games.

With the scores reading 5-5, the Indo-American duo broke through to lead 6-5. They then held their serve 40-15 to pocket a hard fought second set 7-6 and wrap up the match in an hour and nine minutes.

Bopanna and Shelton will take on the Italian pair of Simone Bolelli and Andrea Vavassori.

Meanwhile, Yuki Bhambri and his partner Alexei Popyrin lost to Jan-Lennard Struff and Alex de Minaur 7-5, 5-7, 5-10 in the first round.