If there may be one phrase to explain Rohan Bopanna’s tennis profession, it could be perseverance. Tenacity was his hallmark and a quiet legacy within the historical past of Indian tennis.
The 45-year-old introduced his retirement on the finish of the 2025 season after a 22-year profession that noticed him win two Grand Slam titles. These two numbers alone ought to spotlight his tenacity on the highest degree of tennis. However his perseverance extends past tennis.
His profession started in the course of the extremely political, frictional and factional Leander Paes-Mahesh Bhupathi period. That he overcame that and emerged with dignity and stature (and two Grand Slam titles) is testomony to his important decency and readability of thought and objective.
A job mannequin for late-bloomers on the earth of sports activities, Bopanna’s perseverance is evidenced not solely by his many oldest information, but additionally by his age-related statistics. On the age of 37, he gained his first Grand Slam in blended doubles on the 2017 French Open. He reached the boys’s doubles Grand Slam last for the second time in 10 years, having reached his first Grand Slam match in 2013. His highest level in tennis got here on the age of 43.
However for Bopanna, it was extra about carving his personal path than simply numbers, information and statistics. Typically it was by circumstance slightly than alternative that he needed to discover his manner, however it doesn’t matter what crossroads Bopanna confronted, he normally persevered and eventually reached his peak on the grand previous age of 43, 10 months after his good efficiency on the 2024 Australian Open.
Profitable the Australian Open title was a traditional sports activities fairy story: the underdog triumphs towards all odds. The 43-year-old, gray-bearded, barely stooped man bears no resemblance to the skilled athlete who gained the most important title of his profession and have become world No. 1. He’s the oldest man to win a Grand Slam title and the oldest and first man in tennis to grow to be world primary, a dream that got here true after 20 years on the circuit.
However Bopanna’s profession has elevated the game’s story to a universally inspiring victory. He had no cartilage in his knees, which prevented him from doing endurance coaching, and he famously thought-about retiring 5 years later as a result of he could not bear the ache of enjoying and the ache medicine he wanted.
He did it after realizing he needed to flip his limitations into alternatives, as he spoke movingly in an interview after his breakthrough with companion Matt Ebden in 2023, laying the muse for that victory.
And, frankly, he had numerous limitations. From a pure tennis perspective, Bopanna’s achievements can’t be fitted into the same old classes. He did not have the massive success of a genius or the sustained accomplishments of a serial tennis champion. His highs have been sporadic, however his work ethic was tenacious. On the grueling ATP circuit, he continued to persevere, successful small titles and the second week of Slam tournaments regularly. However for Indian tennis, this was the one success to be talked about within the fallow interval after Sania Mirza’s peak within the late 2010s.
Bopanna was the one headliner in Indian tennis at the moment, dependable and ever-present. His profession was a bridge from the golden age of the early 2000s to the present period of fixed seek for new hope.
An incredible statistic that reveals his tenacity is that this: He has gained India’s solely house ATP match since 2017 with three junior Indian companions: Jeevan Nedunchejyan (37), Divij Sharan (39) and Ramkumar Ramanathan (30).
Bopanna’s run on the Australian Open was the end result of his profession as he turned the oldest participant to win the Masters 1000 and the 2023 ATP Finals. It is also his most memorable second, with tributes pouring in after his profession ended.
However there’s extra to Bopanna’s rise to grow to be considered one of India’s tennis greats over the previous decade.
Solely 4 Indians have gained a Grand Slam title within the historical past of tennis, three of whom are thought-about legends of the game: Leander Paes, Mahesh Bhupathi and Sania Mirza. Bopanna, the fourth Indian on this record, typically flies beneath the radar when India’s tennis legacy is mentioned.
Sure, he’s a serious champion, world primary in males’s doubles, Asian Video games gold medalist, and an Olympian. However he by no means really commanded the identical males because the three pioneers. Admittedly, Bopanna hasn’t had the identical consistency and success on tour as these three, nor has he come near the requirements set by Paes and Bhupathi in males’s doubles, however in hindsight this can be too harsh a light-weight, as evidenced by the shortage of successors to those champions.
Moderately, within the 2010s, he was caught in the midst of a battle between Mr. Paes and Mr. Bhupathi, and sometimes turned a pawn within the bigger recreation of chaos in India’s sports activities administration. He competed within the 2012 and 2016 Olympics (one with Bhupathi and the opposite with Paes), however his presence was extra of an afterthought. His relationship with the All India Tennis Affiliation was so contentious that he was not nominated for the Arjuna Award on account of his failure to win any main medals beneath the Indian flag, however the controversy is now a forgotten controversy as he gained gold medals on the 2018 and 2023 Asian Video games.
Right here Bopanna once more selected a special path. For a participant who has seen Indian doubles groups conflict up shut, he went the opposite manner and helped launch Doubles Dream of India, a assist program for India’s male doubles gamers. They maintain a camp yearly, the place Bopanna coaches and mentors younger doubles gamers. This may be seen as a direct contributor to the expansion of Indian males’s doubles pairs within the circuit.
It was additionally his intention to provide again to the sport, particularly the often-neglected doubles recreation. “Everybody asks why there are not any singles gamers, however I say let’s assist the gamers who’re already right here and the singles gamers will begin their journey. We simply want to begin constructing the construction,” he mentioned.
This can be a completely different sort of endurance. Moving into the generally uncomfortable again finish of a sport to begin one thing new. There isn’t a doubt that he’ll proceed this dedication to tennis, together with his doubles crew and academy, and now with the UTR Tennis Professionals in India.
What I’ll miss will probably be his interactions and the quiet dignity he delivered to the courtroom, win or lose. He was balanced and philosophical about his finest and worst moments, whether or not it was successful his first males’s doubles main after 61 makes an attempt or struggling a heartbreaking loss within the bronze medal match on the 2016 Olympics.
For many of his profession, Bopanna occupied the unconventional third place in Indian tennis and went on to grow to be a legend in his personal proper. His retirement will finish a profession that’s regarded again on with rising respect. Regardless of all this, Bopanna persevered.
