INDIAN tennis player Rohan Bopanna announced his retirement at the age of 45 on Saturday, bringing an end to a professional career of more than two decades during which he won two Grand Slam titles and became the oldest men’s doubles world number one.
Bopanna became the oldest men’s Grand Slam champion in the professional era that began in 1968 when he won the Australian Open doubles title with Australia’s Matthew Ebden last year, a victory that also took him to the top of the world rankings.
He also won the French Open mixed doubles title in 2017 with Canadian partner Gabriela Dabrowski.
"How do you bid farewell to something that gave your life its meaning? After 20 unforgettable years on tour, it's time ... I'm officially hanging up my racket," Bopanna said in a social media post.
In 2024, Bopanna became the oldest ATP Masters 1000 champion by winning the men’s doubles title in Miami at the age of 44 with Ebden, surpassing the record he had set a year earlier in Indian Wells.
Over his career, Bopanna won 26 men’s doubles titles and represented India in the Davis Cup, Olympics and Asian Games.
The player, who comes from a coffee-growing family in Coorg district in Karnataka, won the men’s doubles gold medal at the 2018 Jakarta Asian Games and the mixed doubles title at the Hangzhou Games four years later.
"Representing India has been the greatest honour of my life. Each time I walked onto the court with the tricolour beside me, I felt its pride and its value," he added.
"Every serve, every point, every match - I played for that flag, for that feeling, for my country."
His final professional match was at the ongoing Paris Masters, where he and Alexander Bublik lost 7-5, 2-6, 10-8 to John Peers and James Tracy in the last 32.
