Leander - The Lion-Hearted

Leander Paes has announced that he will be hanging up his tennis racquet at the end of this year.

- GP CAPT ACHCHYUT KUMAR

I have now been writing sports articles for The Teenager Today for more than thirty-six years but somehow Leander Adrian Paes inadvertently never found a place in my writing. The reason, perhaps, is twofold; first, in my younger days, the pair of Premjit Lal and Jaideep Mukherjea and later the Amritraj brothers — Anand and Vijay — were the more talked of players when the Davis Cup matches were played, secondly, when the Grand Slam Events were conducted, it was the single players who stole the limelight. However, as the age-old proverb goes, it is ‘Better late than never’.

An individual who over three decades won 18 Grand Slam titles, 44 Davis Cup doubles matches and a bronze medal in the singles event at the Olympic Games and that too some of them after overcoming a brain tumour operation must definitely rank not only among the greatest tennis doubles players but also a ‘lion hearted’ fighter. In fact, that is exactly what the word Leander means – The Lion Hearted.

As a junior, Leander Paes came into limelight by winning the Wimbledon and U.S. Open titles but he achieved nothing noteworthy in the singles of the Grand Slam events in the men’s events though he did win some important singles matches in the Davis Cup matches. Leander, however, won two ATP singles titles in his career, the better known being the one where he beat Pete Sampras in the finals in straight sets.