Australian Matt Ebden heads to the Davis Cup Final 8 after a semifinal appearance against the world’s best doubles pairs in the ATP Finals.
Turin, Italy , 20 November 2023 | Rhys de Deugd
After a career-first campaign at the ATP Finals, where he reached the semifinals, Matt Ebden will head into the Davis Cup Finals as one of the top-ranked doubles players in the world.
Alongside Indian partner Rohan Bopanna, Ebden fell narrowly short of a place in the final in Turin with a 7-5 6-4 defeat at the hands of Argentinian Horacio Zeballos and Spaniard Marcel Granollers.
“Unfortunately, it wasn’t perfect by probably three to five points, and that’s the difference,” Ebden said after concluding the 2023 ATP Finals with two wins and two losses.
“I would say that they didn’t make any unforced errors on any serves or returns, and we made a couple.”
The result comes at the end of a career-best doubles season for the 35-year-old who has risen to career-high No.4 in the ATP doubles rankings.
In 2023, Ebden and Bopanna reached the final of the US Open and four ATP 1000 Masters events, including Indian Wells in which they were champions.
“Putting myself on the line every day, this is the 47th week of our season,” Ebden said. “We’ve done it great and like we said probably coming into this week, it has been an almost perfect year and probably still stands that way.”
Ebden admits that he feels like a “young one on the doubles tour” alongside 43-year-old Bopanna, and together they can achieve more success in the following years.
“(I am) still enjoying it, still loving it, still want to push along the next five years, 10 years,” Ebden said.
“My goal is always to win all the big tournaments and to be No.1.”
Ebden will head straight to Malaga for his next big tournament, as he represents Australia in the Davis Cup Final 8 this week.
The Australian team face Czech Republic in a quarterfinal tie in Malaga on Wednesday 4pm local time (from 2am AEDT on Thursday 23 November)
Australia is hoping to reach the semifinals for the third time since 2016, after finishing runners-up last year.
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