We are very capable of winning French Open: Rohan Bopanna

Your win with Florin Mergea in Madrid last Sunday was your first at the Masters 1000 level since 2012. It has been a long time coming, hasn't it?
Yes, it has been a while for sure. But there were a few close matches over the last few years in my Masters career. So I'm really happy to win one after a while.

How special was it to win on clay, a surface on which you've never won a title before?
It was very special indeed. I've made a bunch of finals, even with Mahesh (Bhupathi) in Rome (2013), so it's a great feeling to win on clay, especially after having lost the final in Casablanca earlier this year. So I was hoping it would come soon, and I'm really glad it came at a big Masters tournament.

You reached the Shanghai semifinal last year with Florin Mergea and then went back to partnering Daniel Nestor. Why did you decide to partner Mergea again, and how do you complement each other on the court?
Actually, it's a funny story. Last year, before Shanghai, both of us didn't have partners. In fact, Florin had decided to go home after Tokyo. I told him 'you're the top 20 in the world, why are you going home?'. So we both decided to play Shanghai together, and it worked out really well for us the first time.
And after Miami (March 2015) when Nestor called me and said he wanted to try out a new partner and he didn't want to play with me, it just so happened that Florin's partner also got hurt at the same time. It was such a coincidence that Florin texted me asking 'are you looking for a partner?' literally 10 minutes after Nestor had called me! So everything fell into place perfectly.
As for our play, he's not the traditional doubles player who serves and comes to the net. He moves really well staying back. So, I think it makes it easier for me at the net, especially on clay. And if you look at the top doubles players in the modern era, they always have one player who does well at the net and the other at the back.

You teamed up with various players last year, right from Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi to Nestor to Mergea to Leander Paes. Does changing so many partners so frequently affect your game?
Well, it's not the ideal scenario and you don't want to be changing so many partners. But at a certain point of time, if your partner doesn't want to play with you, you have no option but to try and find someone else. So, I hope it will be a long-term partnership with Florin, and a successful one.

With your ranking up to World No. 21, you're now the top-ranked doubles player in India, three places above Paes. That must be satisfying...
Yeah, I mean, I was World No. 3 a year-and-a-half ago (July 2013). So I've already achieved the feat, and I know how it is to be at the top. But it's good be be back there again.

And you'd love to go higher...
Honestly, being No. 1 in India or going ahead of Leander, I don't think we both want to be in this position. Both of us have been at top 5-10 in the world at various stages of our careers, and you want to get back there once you've been at that level. So, yes, I want to get into the top 10. And if I continue performing in every tournament, I will surely achieve that.

Does the Madrid win give you the confidence that a French Open victory can be realistic?
Absolutely, especially if you've won for the first time on clay, it gives you a thought that you can win a Grand Slam on clay too. And if we play at the same level that we played in Madrid, then I think we have a great shot. I really believe we'll be in contention for the title. It's just a matter of making sure that we play to our strengths. If we do that, we're very capable of winning it.

Finally, are you thinking of Rio 2016? Have you had a word with Paes or anyone else in terms of who you'd partner?
I don't think there is really a reason to think otherwise. There's only Paes. There's nobody else around out there in the rankings who can qualify for the Olympics. So that's a no-brainer, really. I think when the time comes, I'm sure we'll get together and we'll be going to Rio. It's easier when it's only two players, right? In doubles, even numbers are always better than odd. Two is better than three, or one (laughs). But the focus for both of us right now is to do well in terms of our individual rankings so that the Rio qualification comes automatically. The target right now is to focus on our individual careers and then take that into Rio.