Age is just a number: Rohan Bopanna and Mathew Ebden win 2024 Australian Open men's double

For Rohan Bopanna, now World No. 1 in doubles, this was also his first major men's doubles title. The Indian who had reached a high of World No. 3 way back in 2013, had won the French Open mixed doubles title in 2017. (Photo via X/@India_AllSports)

In what almost seemed like a canter, though it wasn’t, Rohan Bopanna and Mathew Ebden beat the Italian pair of Simone Bolelli and Andrea Vavassori 7-6 (7-0), 7-5. For the Indo-Australian duo, it was their first Australian Open doubles title. For Rohan Bopanna, now World No. 1 in doubles, it was also his first major men's doubles title. The Indian who had reached a high of World No. 3 way back in 2013, had won the French Open mixed doubles title in 2017.

Becoming the oldest ever to win a major, Rohan Bopanna ensured there was something to cheer and galvanize the 40-plus brigade.

The world, sporting, or us mere mortals, are no longer trying to spin it backwards. In a universe where a 35-plus is considered a veteran of the sport, possibly with a foot wedged in the retirement door, there are plenty of distinguished, 40-plus players who wake up in the morning wanting an ice-bath, where most of the time, their minds push them towards the next chapter. As the ice water seeps in, muscles relax, the body starts motoring, that one more match, another season, another trophy, another win as the adrenaline starts to flow.

It’s also about chasing. To claim that part of history for yourself. Getting past every grumble and wheeze. Rohan Bopanna, the man with a slow gait, has a forehand and serve that could break any top team. And it broke the Italian duo, among whom Simone Bolelli had won the 2015 Australian Open doubles.

Partnerships are crucial in doubles. Former National Champion and now Indian Davis Cup coach Zeeshan Ali said: “Well, Matthew is obviously a very, very solid player. I think he's the right kind of player that Rohan needed. Right kind of partner. The one who supports the kind of game that Rohan plays. And it was good to see that both are gelling extremely well. It's the same case as Mahesh Bhupathi and Leander Paes, where one guy was extremely aggressive and the other was the one who was holding the ground, you know, creating the opportunities for the other and I think that's what is happening over here as well with Matthew. Being so solid from the baseline, making and creating those opportunities for Rohan to be aggressive and play the game that he normally does.”

A lot of focus will be on the ‘age’ factor. An athlete, who at 43, has defied the odds and claimed a Major title. It’s happened in women’s tennis when Martina Navratilova with that stupendous Open Era record of 59 Major titles (18 singles, 31 doubles and 10 mixed) won her final crown, the mixed doubles at the 2006 US Open, just a month before she turned 50!

Jamaican sprinter, Merlene Ottey, who has 9 Olympic medals including 3 silver, losing the 96’ Olympic 100m final to Gail Devers by 1/100th of a second, 14 world championships medals including 3 gold; 5 CWG medals including 3 gold, kept running beyond 50 and then changed nationality to run for Slovenia and turned up at the age of 44 at the 2004 Athens Olympics to storm into the 100m semifinals.

At the 2007 World Championship in Osaka and then at the 2010 European Championships in Barcelona – after having cut her 50th birthday cake – she was a part of the Slovenia 4X100m relay team at the 2012 Europeans in Helsinki. Amazing how the mind can conquer ebbing physicality!

Later she said: “I just love running. Once you love something, you can put up with all the torture. I have a passion for it. When I finish, maybe I'll leave my body for tests.”

Bopanna may have never seen Miura Kazuyoshi of ‘King Kazu,’ as he is known, who is still playing league football at 56, but there is a similar trajectory here! Miura represented Japan 89 times, scoring 55 goals, and winning the 1992 Asian Cup with the Samurai Blue. He turns out for Oliveirense (Liga Portugal 2) and is loan from Yokohama FC (Japanese J1 League).

Closer to football fans in India will be a name Pepe, who at 40 is still turning out for Porto. Pepe has 133 caps for Portugal and has played in three World Cups winning the 2016 UEFA European Championship. The multiple trophy winner, when he was with Real Madrid, is still part of the Portuguese National team.

Boxing, a sport where age is more relevant, saw on November 5, 1994, George Foreman at the of age of 45, become boxing’s oldest heavyweight champion when he beat 26-year-old Michael Moorer in the 10th round of their WBA fight in Las Vegas. Foreman dedicated his upset win to “all my buddies in the nursing home.”

Not so long back in July 2019, boxing star Manny Pacquiao scored a 12-round split decision over the previously unbeaten Keith Thurman to annex the WBA welterweight title at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. He had just turned 40. Sometimes, experience is irreplaceable.

Juan Manuel Fangio’s final Formula 1 victory at the age of 46 in 1957. Maybe, age frees you. Let’s you take an extra step. Take that extra risk to clinch yet another title. Fangio later would say: “I was never a daredevil, never a spectacular driver. I would try to win as slowly as possible. Until that race, I had never demanded more of myself or the cars. But that day I made such demands on myself that I couldn’t sleep for two nights afterwards. I was in such a state that whenever I shut my eyes it was as if I were in the race again, making those leaps in the dark on those curves where I had never before had the courage to push things so far.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni broke the mould in the way we thought of leadership on a cricket field, and then at the age of 41, won the 2023 IPL leading Chennai Super Kings to a euphoric victory over Gujarat Titans on their home soil.

After the win, MSD, said, “Circumstantially, this is the best time to announce my retirement. But the amount of love I have received all over, the easy thing would be to walk away from here, but the harder thing would be to work hard for nine months and try to play another IPL.”

Tori Jovan Nelson at the age of 44 was ranked third best middleweight boxer by The Ring.

There is some truth in what Nelson’s manager and boxing promoter said in an interview to The Washington Post about athletes past 40: “Tori been retiring for 10 years now. ‘This the last one!’ ‘Oh, they got a fight, let’s go.’ Every time! … She can’t stop; it’s in her. She lives to fight.”

Rohan Bopanna, probably, says the same to himself, those early mornings, every time those knees creak, the shoulders feel stiffer than usual, one more trophy, one more match, another Grand Slam.

The dream lives on. Age notwithstanding,