BENGALURU:
Rohan Bopanna
was a little surprised when asked what the Olympic Games meant to him. What kind of a question was that? "It's more than a competition, more than a quadrennial event. It's an emotion," said Bopanna, for whom
Paris
2024 will be his third Games.
Bopanna, 44, will be the oldest tennis player in Paris and the oldest male player since tennis returned to the Olympics in Seoul in 1988.
Martina Navratilova, who played the women's doubles in Athens in 2004 aged 47 years and 309 days, is the only player older than
Bopanna
since 1988.
India rode on Bopanna's ranking for an entry in 2016 (ranked No. 10) and eight years later in 2024 (ranked No. 4), he will partner Sriram
Balaji
, ranked No. 62 in Paris.
"Coming from India, representing your country at the Olympic Games is a passion," he said. "Any time you get an opportunity to compete at the Olympics, it's an opportunity."
For Balaji, 34, Olympic participation has come from left field. "The Olympics was not even on my list, it is a dream for me," he said. "After I broke into the top-100 in the last one-two years and Rohan became top-10, I started thinking about it. Even now, he chose me over Yuki (Bhambri). Yuki was 10 places above me in the rankings when he made a choice. He believes my game will suit him better."
Balaji believes the team has a chance to finish on the podium. "We are both playing very good tennis, there's a good potential to get a medal. I am optimistic," he said.
Balaji isn't worried about the singles players playing doubles. "Singles and doubles is a totally different ball game, doubles is more reaction, we play as a team. Singles players, because they don't play so much doubles, don't combine as a team," he said. "Singles players want to play from the back, but doubles players want to get to the net because we are sharper at the net. "That said, don't underestimate someone like
Rafael Nadal
and Carlos Alcaraz, they can blow you off the court. That is a different scenario, but with two lower-ranked singles players playing doubles, I think doubles players have a better chance."
Bopanna, the senior partner, prefers to take it one step at a time, focused as he is on the practice and the two tournaments they will play before the Games - Hamburg and Umag.
"The main idea is to practice and train together, and build that camaraderie," he said. "At the Olympics there are the variables, it's important to understand how that works. If we play our best tennis every single day we have a good shot, but having said that, we haven't played together so much."
Balaji, who along with Mexico's Miguel Reyes-Varelas made the third round of the
French Open
, will return to Roland Garros to make his Games debut. "I'm not going to think of it as the Olympics," he said. "I am going to think of it as another tournament, but with a different partner. A very good partner."
They are 10 years apart in age and experience, that's if the pairing is taken apart and looked at individually, but it'll be all about team when action gets underway.
English (US) ·