Leander Paes is probably the world’s best doubles player. At the age of 42, he has just won his 17th Grand Slam and his ninth Mixed Doubles championship, just one shy of the great Martina Navratilova. Paes and his partner Martina Hingis won the US Open Mixed Doubles final in three sets, their third title this year after the Australian Open and Wimbledon.
Paes is not done yet. It’s been a long road for him ever since he won the Junior Wimbledon title in 1991 and then turned professional. He won a bronze medal at the Olympic Games in Atlanta in 1996, the first individual medal by an Indian for decades. He had a successful men’s doubles team up with Mahesh Bhupathi, but that partnership turned sour after a while. From then on, he has played with a series of partners, including Navratilova himself.
Tennis is not an inexpensive game to take up as a young sports aspirant. Cricket and football are far easier sports to handle, financially. But, at his age and still going strong, with atleast two to three more years in his tank, Leander Paes has proven that India can produce great sportsmen in varied disciplines. With the government’s help and a transparent system of running sports bodies, devoid of political connections, sports other than cricket in Indian can and will be a reason to make the country proud.
Paes has been doing this for a long time and while he may not be signed up to endorse big brands in India, he has proven that for those who know sports in the country, he is well and truly, a legend.
