Almost a decade has passed since Rohan Bopanna He stood on the podium of the ATP doubles ranking for the first time. She achieved it in July 2013, that year in which Bob and Mike Bryan won 11 titles, including three of the four Grand Slams and five of the nine Masters 1000. They were unattainable.
He was 33 years old at the time and it seemed that the number one train was passing for this talented Indian tennis player, who had reached the Wimbledon semi-final that season as a pair with the Frenchman Edouard Roger-Vasellin, falling just before the American twin brothers in a battle. of five sets.
However, the Kodagu native stayed behind that great goal, taking advantage of the opportunity that was presented to him in this Australian Open 2024 and thus puts the finishing touch to a career of more than 20 years. Paired with the Swede Matthew Ebden, he beat the Argentines 6-4 and 7-6 Maximo Gonzalez y Andres Molteni y He will appear next Monday at the top of the world ranking at 43 years, 10 months and 25 days, an unprecedented record.
After the early elimination of the first two seeds, the American Austin Krajicek and the Croatian Ivan Dodig, Bopanna went out this Tuesday (Wednesday in Australia) to the Margaret Court Arena in search of much more than a victory. He went on to become the oldest player to reach No. 1, both in singles and doubles.. And he achieve it.
Like all tennis players who begin their professional career, Bopanna dreamed of being a great singles player and emulating some of the feats achieved by Stefan Edberg, whom he recognizes as his great reference within the world of racket. But his adventure in that modality did not last very long.
He played only 48 games on the big circuit, with a balance of 15 wins and 33 losses, in addition to a large number of Challengers and which ones played in different ATP tournaments before definitively moving to doubles. Likewise, she had the luxury of being one of the many “victims” of Roger Federer in the Halle tournament, where the Swiss was ten-time champion. Despite being contemporaries, he managed to admire “His Majesty” of him.
As detailed on the official ATP site, “He started playing at age 11 because his father wanted him to play an individual sport.” Muddur Gopal Bopanna, a real estate businessman in India, is a tennis fan and planted the seed for the successful career that his son would end up having by starting to coach him when he was 11 years old.
After being national under-14 champion in 1997 in doubles and finalist in singles, he received a scholarship to enter the Indian Tennis Academy in 1999, a government institution founded with the aim of promoting this sport in the Asian country. There he was trained by Mahesh Bhupathi, champion of Roland Garros and Wimbledon that season, who became his mentor and close friend.
That is, precisely, another of his great pending accounts: lifting a Grand Slam title. She achieved it in mixed doubles, at Roland Garros 2017 with the Canadian Gabriela Dabrowski, but she fell short of that great consecration among men twice and both were at the US Open. First, in 2010, together with the Pakistani Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi, they lost in two tiebreaks against the Bryan brothers; and then, in 2023 with Ebden by their side, they lost in three sets to Rajeev Ram and Joe Salisbury.
He also reached the semifinals at Wimbledon twice, in 2013 and 2015 respectively, four quarterfinals at Roland Garros (2011, 2016, 2018 and 2021) and is having his best performance this year at the Australian Open, upon reaching the semifinals where he will face the Czech duo Tomas Machac and the Chinese Zhizhen Zhang.
Qureshi and Bopanna, the “Indo-pak express” at the 2010 US Open awards ceremony. (EPA)In addition, he was a finalist in the Masters Tournament in 2012 and 2015 and has five Masters 1000 in his cabinets. The most recent, the one he won in Indian Wells last year at the age of 43 years and 14 days, made him the oldest to lift a trophy in this category, surpassing Canadian Daniel Néstor, who held that record after winning Cincinnati in 2015 at 42 years and 353 days old.
In an admirable display of love for art, hierarchy, perseverance and a lot of dedication and professionalism, Bopanna goes on and on. Next March 4th he will turn 44 years old, he achieved a feat of historic proportions and he does not stop his march.
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