Rohan Bopanna: No.1 at Level 43
During our days of primary education, there were no mobile phones and no Google to enhance our worldly knowledge. Our means of gathering knowledge were books, magazines and newspapers. A few of such books that I remember were the Read and Tell series and some eight-page small pamphlet-like books that conveyed several interesting stories. The latter carried mostly character-building stories and the couple of stories that I can still recollect are Rama Cried Wolf and Robert Bruce: The King of Scotland.
Robert Bruce was the King of England who tried to conquer Scotland, but failed six times. After the sixth failure, Robert was hiding in a cave when he saw a spider trying to stretch its web from one end of the cave to the other. The spider failed six times but did not give up its attempt and climbed the wall each time to meet with success on its seventh attempt. Inspired by the small being, Robert the Bruce gathered his army and met with success to become the King of Scotland.
For the present generation, this story of Robert the Bruce may be a new one but then they needn’t get lost in the history of England and Scotland. For the present generation a personality imparting a similar inspiration about not to give up is that of Rohan Machanda Bopanna, an Indian professional tennis player who has etched a new level in tennis doubles which is now being termed as ‘Level 43’.
Born on 4 March 1980 in Bengaluru, Rohan Bopanna turned professional in 2003. His singles achievements are a total contrast to what he has achieved in doubles. In singles, Rohan has never won any ATP or Grand Slam title, while in doubles, with nearly 60% wins he has a total of 25 titles. The highest ever singles ATP ranking that Rohan has ever achieved has been well below 200 while in the doubles he created a furore when in the company of Matthew Ebden, he won the Australian Open doubles title in 2024 and on 29 January 2024 attained the No. 1 ATP ranking in doubles, just 35 days shy of attaining the age of 44 years.
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Gp Capt Achchyut Kumar has been associated with The Teenager Today for more than 50 years as a reader and contributor on varied topics. Having worked in the Indian Air Force and with Forbes & Company Limited, he is now a lawyer in Nainital High Court.