Both are 30 years old.
One is from Bangalore, India while the other is from Lahore, Pakistan.
Both are ranked dismally low in singles.
When they were not a doubles pair, they weren’t recognized the way they are now.
“It’s amazing, what they’re doing off the court. They’re promoting world peace, basically. Two warring countries, and they’re playing together. We’re proud of them, everyone is. And they’re doing great things on the court. We think they’re a really tough team, we just barely scraped by them last week. Both really good guys, well-liked by all the players and fans.” — Mike Bryan (Brother of Bob Bryan – Top seed duo in Doubles).
But since the time, Aisam Qureshi and Rohan Bopanna have joined forces together, they have created magic first in the ITF Futures events, then the Challengers and finally now the WTA and ATP events and above all the big ones – The Grand Slams. 2010 especially has been a magical year for both of them – reaching the quarters in Wimbeldon, beating the Bryan brothers at Washington, reaching the finals of the doubles event at New Haven and reaching the finals of US Open where they went down fighting to the Bryan brothers.
Both of them played together for a while in 2008 but then parted ways because they were ranked really low and couldn’t get into tournaments they would have wanted to. But by mid 2009 when their careers had started blossoming, they decide to join forces. The fact that one of them was from India and the other one from Pakistan made their pairing even more interesting to watch out for.
Both of them have been asked numerous times about what people back in their country think about their pairing considering the tensions between the two nations. Their reply has always been summed up with the slogan they stand by – STOP WAR! START TENNIS!
They are emerging out to be the true PARTNERS IN PEACE AND TENNIS for two nations separated by continuing enmity and decades of war !