All one has to do to prove that India’s Rohan Bopanna still has love for the game of tennis is to look at his birth certificate.
The 43-year-old Bopanna, alongside Australian Matthew Ebden, has navigated his way through the men’s doubles draw and into the championship match on Friday. The appearance in the title round comes 13 years after his only other march toward a Grand Slam final—which also took place in Flushing Meadows—back in 2010.
But if there’s one thing that Bopanna might love even more than booming serves down the “T” on a tennis court, it’s serving up coffee. It runs in his veins, in fact—and in his family. Bopanna owns his own coffee estate in the Indian city of Coorg, a business that’s three generations old and thriving.
“My grandfather started it, and my father is looking over our coffee plantation,” Bopanna said in an interview with USOpen.org. “Coffee has been way before my tennis, so the coffee love was already there very much.”
So he turned his love for coffee into a labor of love off the tennis court, collaborating with a family friend and coffee farmer who had started his own business in 2018 to create a new blend of coffee. When Bopanna travels to events across the globe, beans are in tow alongside his coaching staff and tennis equipment, and the aromatic goods are ready to be hand-delivered to any player who might need to stock their shelves with some joe.
“I brought a lot of beans and gave it to tons of players,” Bopanna said, revealing that he also brought coffee beans from his blend when he came out to New York before this tournament. “My suitcase comes heavy and I travel light back because all the beans have been given out.”
One of the things that caught the eye of the World Coffee Conference, which holds its expo once every four years, is the relative anonymity of Indian-style coffee, as well as the unique process of growing it—one that mostly shuns light.
“The coffee board, when I was talking to them, they all enjoyed what I was doing and they were really happy to see that I was taking Indian coffee in,” Bopanna said. “A lot of people I speak with in the cafes [outside of India], they don’t know that India grows coffee. In India, we grow coffee in shade, and that’s unlike other countries which have direct sunlight, which affects the flavor.”
Bopanna’s post-tennis career appears set, but the coffee remains on the fire in the backburner because of his tennis—and because of the exercise he discovered during the pandemic that kept his body in one piece.
In 2019, less than a year away from turning 40, Bopanna seriously considered calling time on his career, the rigors of tennis doing a number on his body.
“I have no cartilage in my knees. They’re both worn out from wear and tear,” Bopanna said. “Unfortunately, you can’t go and buy cartilage anywhere. I was on two, three painkillers a day. End of 2019, I was in really, really bad shape. I tried to do the PRP [platelet rich plasma], hyaluronic [injection]. Nothing kind of really worked.”
Nothing worked until his cousin’s sister suggested an exercise called Iyengar yoga, a discipline named after an Indian yoga instructor and author. Bopanna did his research and soon found a studio near his hometown of Bangalore. Initially a skeptic about yoga, Bopanna immediately saw its benefits.
“This kind of yoga specifically uses a lot of props in terms of ropes, chairs, tables,” Bopanna said. “[The instructors] also studied the way I function and move on the tennis court. It really helped me build strength on my quads and glutes, and for those four months during the pandemic, gave me some time to really focus on that. That changed a lot. I was doing 90 minute sessions, four times a week of just Iyengar yoga.”
The pain, and the painkillers, were soon a thing of the past.
“I went from two, three painkillers a day to no painkillers today because I’ve strengthened my quads, my hamstrings, my glutes,” Bopanna said. “Also, it has aligned my back and, mentally, I don’t feel rushed anymore when I’m on the court. I feel like I have enough time, and I’m calmer on the court.”
That calmness on the court has served him and Ebden well, and the two have a chance to win a Grand Slam at the end of their first year together as a team. The opportunity to play the final at the US Open is extra special for Bopanna, and not only because it is the site of his only other Grand Slam final doubles match.
Bopanna says that New York is his favorite city in the world, and that he fell in love with it the first time he played as a professional at the US Open. One day, he hopes to combine his drink of choice with an establishment to serve his type of coffee in the Big Apple.
“I would love to actually see Indian coffee in New York. Truly, that is one dream of mine, to actually open an Indian coffee shop in New York,” Bopanna said. “I’m hoping one day. For that I really need to spend more time [in New York]. These two weeks here just for that doesn’t really cut it. I would love to see an Indian coffee shop in this beautiful city because I think there are so many versatile people who love their coffee and travel.”
If he does open that business, and does it while owning a US Open doubles title to boot, he may have to change the name of his signature brew to a champion's blend.
