World No.1 Matt Ebden has revealed that fellow veteran John Peers is set to be his men's doubles partner as he shoots for double tennis gold for Australia at the Olympics.
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And Ebden says Alex de Minaur, who'll go for gold in the singles, is likely to join forces with third-ranked Alexei Popyrin as the other Australian men's partnership in Paris.
But the country's No.2 men's singles player Jordan Thompson and Ebden's 2022 Wimbledon-winning partner Max Purcell have decided to bypass the Olympics to pursue rankings points instead in other ATP events.
The 36-year-old Ebden, who reached the top in the doubles world in February and hopes to cap his distinguished career with potentially two triumphs at the Paris Games, told AAP he's likely to reunite with his 35-year-old pal Peers.
Ebden will also compete with Ellen Perez, currently the women's No.7 ranked doubles player, in the mixed doubles.
The complicated Olympic qualification period was concluded after the French Open finished on Sunday, with Ebden providing insight into the Australian plans for when the Games tennis gets under way back at Roland Garros at the end of July.
The latest link-up between him and Peers, two vastly experienced players who have won 38 men's doubles titles between them, still comes as somewhat of a surprise.
Ebden, who as world no.1 gets to choose his partner, revealed: "It's probably going to be John Peers.
"I usually want to play with Max (Purcell) as we play in the Davis Cup, but Max doesn't want to play at Olympics. He wants to play singles in the USA tournaments and get his ranking up.
"Thompson's not going either, he also wants to play tournaments in the States.
"I've played together with Peersy. A year or two ago we played a couple of tournaments together, played in a final, and we're going to play a few lead-in tournaments together this next month.
"I think de Minaur and Popyrin might team up, the two singles guys teaming up to play some doubles."
In the women's doubles, Perez said that, depending on the final qualification rankings, she would either be partnering Daria Saville or Ajla Tomljanovic, who is also set to play the singles because of her protected ranking from her injury break.
Saville told AAP she is desperate to play at the Games, but her ranking is not high enough to get her into the singles, and her only hope is if the rankings allow her to be Perez's partner in the doubles.
"I would love to play with Dasha (Saville), she's been super keen. We played Billie Jean King Cup together and a little bit even last year here and there. We've done well, so that would be the ideal situation," Perez told AAP.
"But I know that Ajla was interested in wanting to play and she put her hand up, so I have two great options, either way."
Australian Associated Press
