Bopanna has been playing tennis since he was 11 (Picture: Mark Brake/Getty Images)
Rohan Bopanna is living proof that it’s never too late to give up on your dreams.
The Indian tennis player is set to become the oldest tennis world number one and is one step away from landing a second Grand Slam title after years of perseverance.
Along with playing partner Matthew Ebden, the 43-year-old reached the men’s doubles final at the Australian Open on Thursday.
Born in southeast India in 1980, Bopanna never expected to one day become a world-class tennis player. His father worked as a coffee planter and his mother is a housewife.
‘Sometimes I think back, and I look back at the resources we had, and I cannot believe I’m here today,’ Bopanna said.
He puts his success down to yoga and ice baths (Picture: Lionel Urman/Sipa/Shutterstock)
He started playing tennis when he was 11 years old, and became obsessed with the sport. He idolised the Swedish tennis player Stefan Edberg.
However, success didn’t come easily.
As a teenager, Bopanna applied for sports scholarships at academies and got rejected tens of times.
He worked his way up the youth tennis circuit but he was never a standout player. He didn’t win any Junior tournaments or qualify for a Junior Grand Slam.
‘I was nowhere close to it,’ he said.
Still, Bopanna was persistent. He loved the game, and so he kept on playing.
He’s set to become the oldest world number one (Picture: Mark Brake/Getty Images)
Finally, when he was 21, Bopanna had a major breakthrough when he won a national tournament in Chennai.
‘That opened the eyes of everyone to say, oh, there is somebody who has come up out of nowhere,’ he said.
From there, his tennis career gathered pace.
He made his Davis Cup debut for India in 2002, and played pro for the first time in 2003.
However, he never qualified for a singles Grand Slam event and Bopanna began to focus his efforts on playing doubles.
He teamed up with several players, but found a lasting partnership with Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi from Pakistan.
In 2010, the pair got through to the quarter-finals of Wimbledon – a first for both of them. Later that year, they made it to the final of the US Open, but lost to American brothers Bob and Mike Bryan.
The early 2010s brought personal highs for Bopanna, marrying Supriya Annaiah in 2012, a trained psychologist who was a friend of his cousin, and the pair now have a four-year-old daughter named Tridha.
Bopanna lives with his wife Supriya and daughter Tridha in Bangalore (Picture: Instagram/ rohanbopanna040)
As Bopanna grew older, though, injuries became more common. He discovered he had no cartilage left in his knees, saying it had ‘completely worn out’.
By the end of 2019, Bopanna was taking two to three painkillers a day and was considering giving up his tennis career because of the extreme knee pain.
However, during Covid-19 lockdowns, when he was stuck at home, Bopanna discovered a way to manage his knee pain: yoga.
‘It always was there in India, but I never really tried it,’ he said.
He found a teacher and started practicing Iyengar yoga, which improves body alignment and uses lots of props. It cultivates strength as the poses are held for long periods of time, which also benefits focus.
‘It’s really helped calm my mind, and I don’t feel rushed on the tennis court.’
He also upped his health routines. He recruited a full-time physio, Rebecca Van Orshaegen, and started taking daily ice baths, which he swears by.
Bopanna started yoga in lockdown (Picture: Instagram/rohanbopanna0403)
It wasn’t just physical barriers that Bopanna had to overcome. He found that his biggest challenge was mental.
‘In 2021, I did not even win a match for the first five months of the year…I definitely thought about it [retirement].
‘As a tennis player, you think sometimes the journey is done and you don’t know what’s next.’
But it was advice from his wife that kept him going.
‘My wife said it beautifully one day, “when you change limitations to opportunities, everything changes”. We are always told at 25 this has to happen, by 30 this has to happen, at 40 this will happen.
‘It’s a thing which is told to us constantly, whether it is sport or life, whether it is marriage, having kids, whatever it may be.
‘But when you change that into opportunities, then the limitations go away.’
Bopanna said advice from his wife, centre, encouraged him to keep on playing (Picture: Greg Wood/AFP via Getty Images)
Bopanna has played with several partners over the years, including Canadian Gabriela Dabrowski, with the pair winning the mixed doubles at the French Open in 2017 – his only Grand Slam title so far.
However, by the end of 2022, Bopanna was on the look out for a new partner and found a quick connection with Australian Matthew Ebden, 36.
‘I think it was mutual, very mutual,’ Bopanna said.
He and Ebden played in the US Open final last year, but lost. They’ll be looking to avenge that heartbreak this weekend.
Ebden said: ‘It would’ve been easy for him to think ‘I’ll just have another decent year and retire in the next couple of years’ but I asked him to commit fully.
‘We worked hard together. This is a testament of that, and incredible effort.’
The pair beat Tomas Machac of Czech Republic and Zhizhen Zhang of China in the semi-final of the Australian Open.
It earned them a second consecutive appearance in a slam final, and one where they will be hoping for a very different feeling at the end of it when they face Italian duo Andrea Vavassori and Simone Bolelli on Saturday.
‘It has been a dream to get close to my highest ranking,’ Bopanna said. ‘It has been little over a decade since I got to world No. 3 and after a successful 2023, I believed I could get to the world No. 1.’
Bopanna and Ebden celebrate winning match point during the men’s doubles semi-final match (Picture: Andy Cheung/Getty Images)
‘Little did I know it would come 11 years later.’
At 43, he is set to become the oldest world tennis number one.
‘I am at level 43 more than age 43,’ Bopanna joked. ‘There are a few guys who are playing on the circuit born even after I became a pro, but I’m just happy where I am.
‘People all over the world, being 40 and above, it’s just going to inspire them in a different way.’
Mike Bryan previously held the record, when he became the men’s double number one at 41 years old.
Roger Federer gained the title for the oldest men’s single number one when he was 36, but that could record could be broken by Novak Djokovic this year.
The oldest women’s singles number one is Serena Williams, at 35.
Bopanna plans to play at the Paris Olympics in the summer – when he’ll be 44.
‘I don’t think there is any reason to stop,’ he said.
He’s set to become the oldest tennis world number one.
