Rohan Bopanna, Sumit Nagal secure Paris Olympics 2024 quotas for India

NEW DELHI: Tennis stars Rohan Bopanna and Sumit Nagal have secured their Paris Olympics 2024 quotas for India through their Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) Rankings in doubles and singles competition respectively. The qualification window for Paris Olympics ended on Monday for Tennis and the world number four Bopanna earned his quota comfortably, sitting pretty inside the top 10 of doubles competition since November last year.

Nagal made it to the quotas as well after gaining a jump of 18 places in the singles rankings last week. Following his ATP Challenger title win at the Heilbronn Neckarcup in Germany on Sunday, Nagal jumped from number 95 to a career-best ranking at number 77, as per Olympics.com. The men's and women's singles competition at the Paris 2024 will be featuring 64 players each.

The top 56 players from men's singles competition as per ATP Rankings released on June 10 got their quotas. Each country can secure a maximum of four quotas. France had one quota spot reserved as the host nation in case none of their players managed to secure a direct spot in the Olympics via rankings. But since France secured all four men's singles quotas through their rankings, the host country quota was added back into the pool and cut-off went up from 56 to 57 players. Nagal occupied the last spot among players eligible for quotas through rankings and secured his berth.

Nagal, who played for India in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, was 138th in the rankings back in January. He broke into the Top 100 of the ATP earlier this year with a title win at Chennai Open. For Olympic tennis, the National Olympic Committees (NOCs) worldwide will have to give confirmation of usage of quotas by July 19. They have the exclusive authority for representation of their countries at the multi-sport event and the participation of the athletes in the games will depend on how they select the athletes to represent the country's flag at the Olympics.

Meanwhile, the doubles event will feature 32 teams in men's and women's competition each, with two teams per country. The first players to qualify for the event were the top 10 players in the doubles rankings, as long as they had a partner available within the top 300 of the doubles competition. Bopanna is expected to choose world number 67 Sriram Balaji as his partner for the Olympics, given the quota is confirmed by NOC. The 44-year-old Bopanna won the Australian Open Grand Slam in January and reached the semi-finals at the French Open last week. Bopanna represented India at the London 2012 Games and Rio 2016 but missed out on qualification for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.