If Rohan Bopanna’s tennis career had to be described in one word, it would be perseverance. Perseverance is his both his defining quality and quiet legacy in the annals of Indian tennis.
The 45-year-old announced his retirement at the end of the 2025 season, after a career that spanned 22 years and had 2 Grand Slam titles. Those two numbers alone should highlight his persistence at the highest level of tennis. But his perseverance extends beyond tennis.
His career was born and grew up in the hugely political and frictional, factional Leander Paes-Mahesh Bhupathi era. That he navigated that and emerged with his dignity and stature intact (and with two Grand Slam titles) is testament to his essential decency and clarity of thought and purpose.
That Bopanna – a role model for late bloomers in sport – is perseverant is evidenced by his age-related stats, and not just the slew of oldest-man records he has. He who won his first Grand Slam – the mixed doubles at 2017 French Open – at 37 years of age. He reached his second men’s doubles Grand Slam final, 10 years after his first one in 2013. His greatest tennis peak came at 43.
But with Bopanna, it was not just about numbers or records or statistics, it was about making his path in his own way. Having to find his own way was sometimes due to circumstances, not choice, but no matter at what crossroads he found himself, Bopanna usually persevered through and finally reached his peak at the grand old age of 43 years, 10 months after the glorious run at the 2024 Australian Open.
That Australian Open title run was a classic sporting fairytale – an underdog winning against all odds. A 43-year-old, grey-bearded, slightly stooped man who looks nothing like a pro athlete winning his biggest career title and becoming the world number 1. The oldest man to win a Grand Slam title, oldest first-time world number 1 in tennis, a dream fulfilled after 20 years on the circuit.
But Bopanna’s background elevated this sporting story into a universally inspirational victory. He famously did with no cartilages in his knees, no ability to do endurance training because of it and five years after he considered retirement because the pain of playing and painkillers needed was too much to bear.
He did it after realising he had to turn his limitations into opportunities, as he had so movingly shared in an interview with after his breakthrough run in 2023 with partner Matt Ebden, which set the foundation for that triumph.
And limitations, to put it candidly, he had many. In pure tennis terms, Bopanna’s achievements can’t be pegged in the usual categories. He neither had the runaway success of prodigies or sustained accomplishments of serial winners in tennis. His highs were sporadic, but his work ethic was persistent. In the gruelling ATP circuit, he hung in there with small titles and second weeks of Slams on regular basis. For Indian tennis though, this was the only success to speak of in a fallow period post the peak of Sania Mirza in the late 2010s.
Bopanna was the only headline for Indian tennis then, reliable and ever-present. His career was the bridge between the golden era of the early 2000s to the current one of endless search for new hope.
A wonderful stat to see his persistence is this: He won India’s only home ATP tournament with 3 different Indian partners since 2017 – Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan (37 years), Divij Sharan (39 years) and Ramkumar Ramanathan (30 years), all juniors.
That Australian Open run was Bopanna’s zenith, after a slew of oldest-to wins at Masters 1000 and ATP Finals in 2023. It’s also what will be most remembered moment when tributes flow in after he has called time on his career.
There’s so much more, however, to Bopanna growing into an Indian tennis great in the last decade.
Only four Indians have won a Grand Slam title in the history of tennis, and three of them are seen as legends of the sport – Leander Paes, Mahesh Bhupathi, Sania Mirza. Bopanna, the fourth Indian on this list, was often under the radar when Indian tennis legacy is discussed.
Yes, he is a Major champion and has been a world number 1 in men’s doubles, has gold medals at the Asian Games and is an Olympian. But he has never really commanded that same following as three who were pioneers. Yes, Bopanna couldn’t garner the consistency and success as those three on the tour, but he was also held to the benchmark set by Paes and Bhupathi in men’s doubles, which can be too harsh a light in hindsight as evidenced by the lack of any successors to these champions.
Instead, he was caught between the friction of Paes and Bhupathi in the 2010s, where he was more often than not a pawn in the bigger game of Indian sports’ administrative chaos. Though he competed at the 2012 and 2016 Olympics – one with Bhupathi and the other with Paes – his presence was more an afterthought. So contentious was his relationship with the All India Tennis Association that he was not nominated for an Arjuna Award for not winning major medals under the Indian flag, which is a now-forgotten controversy as he won gold medals at the 2018 and 2023 Asian Games.
This is where Bopanna took a different route again, for a player who has seen the clashes in the Indian doubles team from close quarters, he went the other way and helped start a support program for Indian men’s doubles players – the Doubles Dream of India. They have an annual camp and Bopanna mentors and guides younger doubles players, which can be directly credited with the growth of Indian men’s doubles pairs on the circuit.
This giving back to the game, specifically to the oft-ignored doubles game is also deliberate on his part. “Everybody asks why there are no singles players. But I’m saying let’s help the guys who are here already and then maybe the singles will start the journey. We just need to start a structure,” he said.
This is a different kind of perseverance; wading into the sometimes-unpleasant backend of sports to be able to start something new. This commitment to tennis is something he is sure to continue, with the double’s teams, his academy and now getting UTR Tennis Pro to India.
What will be missed will be the quiet dignity he brought to the court and his interactions, whether win or loss. He was philosophical about his best and worst, with a balanced perspective, whether it was his first men’s doubles major after 61 attempts or heartbreakingly losing the bronze medal match at the 2016 Olympics.
During most of his career, Bopanna occupied a peculiar third place in the Indian tennis landscape, before becoming a legend in his own right. His retirement ends a career that will be looked back at with increasing respect. Through it all, Bopanna persevered.
