Rohan Bopanna had a bumper season in 2011 as he racked up several good performances in tandem with Pakistan's Aisam ul-Haq Qureshi. Most notable were the ATP World Tour Masters 1000 title victory in Paris and qualifying for the World Tour finals in London.
As the 31-year-old prepares to begin a new alliance with Mahesh Bhupathi at the Aircel Chennai Open, he speaks about his career highs, partnership with Aisam, their role as peace ambassadors, and why retirement is not on his mind right now.
Excerpts from an exclusive interview for The Hindu :
On 2011: It's definitely been one of my best years on tour. Aisam and I had a good first year [2010]. In 2011, we had to defend points and fortunately we had the advantage of playing the full calendar, including Grand Slams and Masters. Making it to the semifinal of the U.S. Open and qualifying for the ATP World Tour finals were certainly high points.
On Aisam Qureshi: I have known him for 15 years now. He is such a positive player and a supporting person off the court. Aisam's strength is his serve-and-volley style and that has helped our partnership immensely too. He is more a friend than a partner which is why he understood my decision to partner Mahesh this season.
On winning the ‘Champion for Peace' award: We [Aisam and Bopanna] were there as peace ambassadors. It was an award recognised by Prince Albert II of Monaco. The recognition made us see the bigger picture.
We have been playing together from 2003 but the media highlighted our partnership only when we reached the U.S. Open final in 2010. And obviously if we can help tennis in our respective nations, there will be nothing like it. (The duo also won the Arthur Ashe humanitarian award in 2010).
On conscious effort at playing only doubles: I am 31 now and I had to make a career choice — play doubles or quit tennis altogether. I was not really breaking through as a singles player and naturally when you play doubles day in and day out, your singles rankings suffer. So I am happy at what I am doing now.
On career and retirement: It's been good; playing at the highest level, representing India in
the Davis Cup, playing doubles and doing well at Grand Slams have no doubt been a platform to moving forward. I have a long way to go before I retire. I can probably give you a better answer [about when he would retire] three or four years down the line.
On Rohan's restaurant: I am only a silent partner in the business. My friends take care of it as I am away most of the times. It was just a different kind of investment; fun to go about.
Unwind mantra: I catch up on a lot of Bollywood films when at Bangalore and hang out with friends. Travelling continuously does take a toll and sometimes just the simplest things like eating home-cooked food or spending time at a friend's place make a huge difference.
Favourite destination: Mauritius.
Idols and books: Stefan Edberg was my role model as a kid. I have looked up to Federer as well. I found ‘Open' [Andre Agassi's autobiography] and ‘Rafa' [Rafael Nadal's biography] very interesting.
