Veteran tennis player Rohan Bopanna is preparing to play his last Davis Cup 2023 match against Morocco at the Vijayant Khand Mini Stadium in Gomti Nagar, Lucknow on Saturday and Sunday.
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"It has become too mechanical to just come, play, and leave," says Bopanna who is set to quit Davis Cup 2023 this coming Sunday. "There used to be fantastic team atmosphere, which has been kind of lost in the last couple of years. And we need to bring that back."
Someone who willingly tweaked his own game to adjust to the styles of legendary Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi while playing for the country, Rohan Bopanna often gets baffled to find the love of playing Davis Cup diminishing with the passage of time. Bopanna does not find the current lot as passionate about playing the David Cup compared to players from past generations.
"Davis Cup is all about team camaraderie, spending time with the team, being together, everybody coming together. And I think that is a little missing link. We need to bring it back to have a successful team. There's no particular reason why it's happened. I think, in a way, it is just ourselves trying to find each other, you know, understand that the (ATP) Tour is different, Davis Cup is different." Bopanna added.
The 43-year-old Bopanna, who is currently ranked seventh in the world in doubles rankings, etched her name in the history books by becoming the oldest player to compete in a Grand Slam doubles final at the US Open last week. Moreover, Bopanna reached his first major final at the 2010 US Open with Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi. Since then, he has competed at the ATP Finals three times with three different partners.
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In addition, the Indian tennis star, who made her Grand Slam debut in 2006, eventually won his first mixed doubles title at the 2017 French Open with Canadian partner Gabriela Dabrowski. With this victory, he joined the list of players like Leander Paes, Mahesh Bhupathi, and Sania Mirza. Bopanna also made it to the mixed doubles finals of the 2018 and 2023 Australian Open with Tímea Babos and Sania Mirza respectively.