Indian Tennis owes a lot to Leander Paes who has faithfully served the country with great distinction in this sport for last 2 decades. His game automatically jumps a few notches when he is representing India and he has been associated with some of the greatest moments in Indian tennis history . Before anything congratulations to Leander for winning the French Open 2009 doubles title with Dlouhy, yet another addition to his long list of achievements.
Born in a sporting family Leander started as a child prodigy and was ranked #1 in the world in junior ranking annexing junior US Open & junior Wimbledon. He turned pro in 1991 at a tender age of 18. He had started making waves in Davis Cup helping india reach world gp qualifying winning all his matches against Indonesia & Korea. In 1992 he reached the QF of 1992 Barcelona Olympics doubles with Ramesh Krishnan. More success followed in Davis Cup in 1992-1993 as he helped India reach world group semis defeating fancied teams like Great Britain, Switzerland and France. In the process he defeated many distinguished players like Jeremy Bates, Jakob Hlasek, Arnaud Boetsch all ranked much higher than him and even the legendary Henri Leconte. He also reached 1993 US Open Doubles SF with Sebastian Lareau. He also defeated South African Wayne Ferreira in Davis Cup who was at that time ranked inside top 10 in the world. He had a good run in 1995 when he reached 1995 Australian open doubles QF and vanquished the giant Goran Ivanisevic as India reached Davis Cup world gp QF. 1996 was a golden year in Indian sports as Leander brought home an Olympic Medal after 16 yrs and first individual medal since K D Jadhav in 1952 Helsinki Olympics. It instilled a tremendous sense of self belief and India has never returned empty handed from Olympics after that till date. The Government recognized his accomplishments and he was awarded the highest sporting honour in India the ‘Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award’ in 1996. In 1997 he partnered with Mahesh Bhupathi to reach SF at US Open and in 1998 in Semi Finals of Australian, French and US Opens in men’s doubles. In 1998 he also won his maiden ATP TOUR title in Hall of Fame Tennis Championships, Newport, USA and rose to career best ranking #73 in the world after defeating Pete Sampras. In 1999 Leander reached the finals of all 4 grand slams partnering Mahesh and won the French Open and Wimbledon where he also won the Mixed doubles event with Lisa Raymond to complete a grand double. He also became #1 ranked player in the world in doubles.
He has by now won 5 grand slam men’s doubles: 3 with Mahesh and 1each with Martin Damm and Lukas Dlouhy. He has also won 4 mixed doubles titles: twice with Martina Navratilova and also with Lisa Raymond and Cara Black winning 9 Grand Slams at all the venues and just 2 behind Mahesh who has got 11 grand slam titles. His zeal and passion for the game remains as strong as ever as he proves again by winning the just concluded French Open. I wish he brings many more laurels to our country and hopefully another Olympic Medal.
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wow. you know/remember so much about him
ReplyDeletefor sometime his popularity rivaled the cricket stars.