Rohan Bopanna

Mumbai: Rohan Bopanna’s doubles career has got a major boost, with multiple Grand Slam champion and former world number one Max Mirnyi agreeing to play with him in the St Petersburg Open, a $1.05m indoor hard court event on the ATP Tour to be played from October 20.

“I called up Mirnyi after he broke up with (Jamie) Murray and he instantly agreed to play with me. I can surely learn a lot from his calibre and experience at the highest level,” said Boppana in a press statement from Tashkent where he qualified for the main draw of a $125,000 Challenger event, on Tuesday.

Belarusian Mirnyi, currently ranked 26, is no stranger to Indian fans. He partnered Bhupathi a few years ago and the pair won the 2002 US Open title, the Indian’s first and only major crown so far after splitting with Paes.

In all, Mirnyi, 31, has won 35 titles including four Grand Slams — two US Open and as many French Open triumphs.

Bopanna has made rapid strides in the doubles with Pakistan’s Aisam ul Haq Qureshi as partner in recent times.

The 27-year-old is currently ranked 151 in the world, second only to Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi among the Indians.

The Bangalorean was ranked as high as 43 in July and also registered his maiden Tour win in Los Angeles with Eric Butorac this year.

But the Russian event would be a one-off tournament with Mirnyi as Bopanna would be reuniting with Qureshi for forthcoming Challenger events in Germany and Slovakia.

“Knowing each other for so long and our off-court relationship have helped me and Aisam to pull off some very good matches,” Bopanna said of Qureshi, with whom he won four successive Challenger tournaments last year.

Bopanna said he deserved to be picked for the Davis Cup World Group play-off tie against Romania in September, which India lost.

“I was surprised at not being on the Davis Cup team. Normally we have 5 players travelling on the Davis Cup team for an away tie, but for this tie only 4 players were sent,” he said.

“I was told I was dropped because my performance was not good enough in the singles … Many don’t know that my singles ranking has been affected because of my doubles performances.

“Many times I couldn’t play qualifying in the singles as I was playing in the finals of a doubles event.”

Hopefully, his good run in Tashkent should help improve his singles ranking, which has slipped to 347 at the moment.

After coming through three rounds of qualifying, Bopanna extended his form to register a 7-6 (8-6), 6-4 win over Ilia Marchenko of Ukraine in one hour and 55 minutes.

In the doubles, Bopanna and Purav Raja shocked Kazakhstan’s pair of Alexey Kedriouk and Yuri Schukin 6-1, 2-6, 10-8 to enter the quarter finals.

“I’m just trying to leave everything behind me and trying to improve my singles rankings and get back my place back in the squad.”