Men’s tennis in India is generally considered the preserve of the old. There is a glorious history book with tales of the Amritraj brothers and the Krishnan family to peep into, but little outside of it. Mahesh Bhupathi, the current Davis Cup captain, secured a place in the hall of fame a while ago and so has his contemporary Leander Paes.
But somewhere, under their shadow, and slightly away from the high table, Rohan Bopanna, newly-crowned French Open mixed doubles champion, has come into his own. He is 37 and apart from a few streaks of grey on his immaculately manicured beard, there is little that betrays his age. A slim-fit black tee on stonewashed jeans suits him just right.
“At the end of the day, it comes down to how fit you keep yourself,” he says. “If you see, a majority of the doubles players are in their 30s. Even the Bryans [Bob and Mike], are close to 40. One thing that has helped over the years is travelling with my coach and trainer. As far as you are fit and enjoying the travel, it’s all good.” Bopanna clearly enjoys living out of a suitcase. “If you don't like travelling, this is not the sport for you,” he says.
It is a breezy, cloudy Monday evening in Bengaluru and we meet at a roof-top restaurant in upscale Koramangala. He arrives ahead of time, and as I try helping the photographer locate the venue, Bopanna offers to send him the GPS location. He has none of the airs that can possibly be associated with a brand-new Grand Slam winner, one who has just joined a pantheon of greats alongside Paes, Bhupathi and Sania Mirza. “I’ll wait for you. I’ll be upstairs,” he says.
Proud, proud feeling
The photographer arrives and launches his shoot, in the middle of which a young lady, introducing herself as Bopanna’s “biggest fan” interrupts us to congratulate him on his win. He indulges her with a photo and a wide grin.
“It’s a proud, proud feeling,” he says, of what is probably the crowning achievement of his career thus far. “As I finished the match, I didn’t feel much. But when I woke up the next day, it was truly a great feeling. It’s tough to describe it in words. At first it feels like ‘okay you have won a tournament.’ Later, you realise the scale of it when you constantly get all these overwhelmingly positive messages. Even sitting here I get goosebumps thinking about it.” When he arrived at the Bengaluru airport there were friends and family who came to receive him at 3 a.m.
“That was really special. This has never happened before.” Sometimes, when Bopanna speaks, his responses seem like standard clichés, his narration stoic even if it’s of the most momentous achievements. But his sincerity is unmistakeable. Words may appear to fail him, but actions don’t.
And nothing is more reflective of this than his doubles partnership with Pakistan’s Aisam ul-Haq Qureshi in the late 2000s. It was a more-than-successful combination with a handful of titles and a run to the U.S. Open Final in 2010. The beauty of it though lay in the fact that it wasn’t fenced within the four corners of a tennis court. Their ‘Stop War, Start Tennis’ message, emblazoned across their tees and towels, fetched them the ATP Arthur Ashe Humanitarian of the Year award.
“It was like any other partnership,” Bopanna says. “We had played numerous Challenger-level tournaments even before the media knew about us. I have known him more as a friend than as a doubles partner. There are so many countries we go to. The Europeans hang out together, the Americans stay together. So from Asia at that time, it was Aisam and me. He spoke Urdu and I spoke Hindi and things were common. We had similar interests in food. We’d go sometimes to either an Indian restaurant or Pakistani restaurant and that’s how we built a good friendship together.”
Bopanna is very plugged into what goes on on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. But he insists that even in this age of social media anger and outrage, he wouldn’t flinch at the thought of teaming up with Qureshi again (even though partnership, at this stage, is as hypothetical as it gets). “It’s a personal thing. If you think it will do well for you, you go ahead and do it. So whichever combination works, whoever it may be with, if it brings success and laurels, why not?”
“Everyone has his or her own opinion,” he adds. “You can’t let these things affect you. For me, I just think, I still need to do my stuff—wake up, train, eat the right food, and all that... My routine doesn’t change if I lose in the first round. Someone who says something today may say something else tomorrow. So you just stay positive. It’s not easy, I agree, but these are things you learn as a player.”
It perhaps helps that his wife, Supriya Annaiah, is a practising psychologist. Tennis is an unforgiving sport: you lose way more than you win. A steady head comes as much in handy as a powerful forehand.
Delayed start
Bopanna says he has “truly matured” as a sportsman now. “As a junior I was never really that good. Even at the national level, I wasn’t good. I picked up tennis rather late, when I was around 11. There was no gym as such in Coorg. My father would get two poles, tie a rope, and it became rope climbing. Swinging a hammer every day was like my workout. As an athlete, I have adapted.”
And there is so much that needs to be learnt even today, he says. “I think this has reflected in my life too. People often ask me how I am so calm. That perhaps comes from tennis and the life as a sportsman—the routine, constantly being on flights, being on time, and managing your life better. Things, unless they’re huge, don’t affect me.”
There is a tattoo on his right arm that I am curious about. Bopanna rolls his sleeve up to reveal a dragon. “I am a huge fan of dragons and the fire they symbolise.”
You are supposed to be calm, I interject. “Yes. So for that I have a Ganesha tattoo,” he says, displaying another tattoo on his left arm. “A warrior Ganesha with a Coorg touch,” he laughs. “They balance and keep me calm.”
