The former world no 3 doubles player follows a healthy diet on a daily basis, but every time he’s in the city, the tennis ace likes to indulge in gulab jamuns.
At 22, critics in tennis had ruled him out. With a career ranking of 213 in men’s singles, Rohan Bopanna was hardly in the reckoning in the world tennis scene. Six years later, he achieved the unthinkable – he was ranked No 3 in the world (men’s doubles category) in 2013.
He has been a strong force since and has carried forward the legacy of his senior compatriots Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi. “I peaked late in my career because of the kind of system we have in India,” he says. “By the time we realise what’s good and what kind of training is required, many years are lost. In countries like the US, they have a system in place where they know how a top U-16 or U-18 player needs to train and reach top Slams. I am sure if we have better training facilities in place, we will see players peaking much early and have a longer career,” he says about starting a formidable career only in his early 30s.
While he travels across the globe on tournaments, he plays a lot of golf to de-stress and take the edge of constantly competing. But when he comes back home, he never misses the opportunity to indulge in his all-time favourite sweet treat, gulab jamun, especially from Bhagatram Sweets on Commercial Street.
We talk to the Coorg tennis ace about what works for him, his trade secrets and fitness mantras.
Meal plan
Morning mantra
I am a morning person and no matter what time I sleep, I get up on the dot after eight hours. My biological clock is set to eight hours.
Breakfast I love my eggs, especially scrambled eggs with some brown bread toasted, a bowl of cereal with cold milk and fruits. The timing of my meals and what I eat – be it breakfast or lunch, dinner – always depends on and revolves around my match schedules.
Lunch Pasta is what I usually prefer to have for lunch along with some grilled fish.
Dinner For dinner, I usually get chicken with some brown or white rice. If not that I have a good steak but I make sure I eat dinner at least three hours before I go to bed.
Snack Snacks are always fruits for me and sometimes, I munch on raisins.
Guilty pleasure It’s the Bhagatram gulab jamuns that I really love and crave for. But luckily, I am not home most of the year, so I don’t have the temptation or rather don’t get to eat it as often.
Drink menu I really like fresh fruit juices. I get my protein in my meats, so I don’t feel the need to have any protein shakes.
Tricks of the trade Well, when it comes to tennis, the most important thing is to watch and pay attention to all the top players about how they train, move on court, eat right and learn from that. The main thing is that it requires 100 per cent commitment and discipline.
De-stress strategy Listening to some good music (it could be anything, even Hindi, at times) and playing any other sport apart from tennis helps me de-stress. I mostly play golf as it is easily available all over the world.
Best advice The most important thing, when you decide to take up something in life is to not have an ounce of doubt in your own mind about it. You need to be 100 per cent sure that this is what you want to do and there’s no absolutely no doubt about it.
Skin splurge My wife keeps suggesting I use sun blocks and creams but I am so careless, I just don’t bother. I think it’s time to start. However, I do visit spas quite regularly but that’s more for massages and nothing to do with improving my skin tone.
Downtime I catch up on my movies. If I get a chance to watch any Bollywood movie, then that’s my first preference for sure.
Fitness mantra I enjoy my interval running on the treadmill. To add to this, I work a lot on my core and balances. I do interval running about five times a week and then in the gym, I lift weights but that’s just to maintain my muscles and not really to gain bulk or look ripped.
source: http://www.bangaloremirror.com / Bangalore Mirror / Home> Columns> You / by Nandini Kumar, Bangalore Mirror Bureau / June 07th, 2015
