Leander Paes: The Indian Pride!

I have mentioned Leander Paes in a couple of articles in passing, before it struck me: why not write an article about him!

Almost everyone is familiar with Leander Paes. He recently won the U.S. Open Mixed Doubles with Cara Black and reached the finals of the U.S. Open men’s doubles partnering Lukas Dlouhy before losing to the Bryan brothers.

He has been representing India for almost 17 years; he was the lone medal winner for India at the Atlanta Olympics [1996] winning a bronze medal; and he is still going strong!

Lee as he is popularly known has won 38 doubles titles, which includes eight grand slams partnering with Mahesh Bhupathi, Martin Damm and the former world No. 1 Martina Navratilova. He and Bhupathi were ranked as the No. 1 doubles team in 1999.

Lee has managed to keep the Indian tennis dream afloat, after Vijay Amritraj and Ramanathan Krishnan.

But he has had his share of ups and downs too; he recently quit as the Indian Davis Cup captain because of controversies surrounding his captaincy.

Still, no one can deny that Lee has done his bit and probably even more for Indian tennis and Indian sports.

Lee’s dedication to the sport and to his country is something that can never be debated.

Indian tennis currently is resting on the shoulders of the senior players, even though we have players like Prakash Amritraj, Rohan Bopanna, and Somdev Dewarman.

In spite of these players, India didn’t make it to the finals of the Davis Cup, losing to Romania in the playoff 3-1.

India’s lone victory was in the doubles match between Lee-Hesh and Cruciat-Tecau.

This proves that India still needs its seniors to win matches, but the point is: for how long will Lee play? One day, he has to retire and the day he announces his retirement, from that day on, Indian tennis will be one great question mark!

Moreover, Lee has been representing Indian tennis for so long that, his retirement will create such a void that can never be filled.

Ultimately, the only thing is that Indian tennis improves by the time the inevitable day arrives and we are able to give Lee a proper adieu that neither he nor we Indians will regret!