Paes and Bhupathi, India's Twilight warriors, dream of Olympic gold

By Dhananjay Khadilkar

Paris: Leander Paes is 38, sports a bit of a paunch. His reflexes at the net are still lightning quick; his serve can still be a sticky point and he doesn’t move as well as he used to.

His partner, Mahesh Bhupathi is 37, married to a movie star and with various business ventures. The last time they were ranked number 1 in doubles was way back in 1999.

Yet, every time they step out on to the tennis courts. We expect them to win. The setting doesn’t matter, neither does age. So when they decided to play together again this year, there was a fair bit of excitement on the Indian tennis scene.

Somdev Devvarman was starting to make his mark in singles. Rohan Bopanna was establishing himself as a doubles force and the Indian Express was reunited. It couldn’t get better for India.

Well, in terms of sheer titles it didn’t get better. They failed to win a Grand Slam title and the year ended on a disappointing note as they lost their first match in the final ATP Masters tournament in Paris. However, they did manage to make it to the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals for the first time since 2002 after securing qualification in mid-October.

Following the match in Paris, Paes admitted that the year had been a mixed bag. “It’s been a bit up and down. We had some good results in the beginning. In between, it was not as good as we would have liked it to be,” he said after the match.

The 38-year-old was referring to their performance at the Australian Open where they reached the finals, prior to which they had won the Chennai Open title. The duo had built a great momentum at the beginning of the year and it seemed ‘The Indian Express’ would rediscover their winning ways of the old.

However, in the remaining Grand Slams, the best they could do was reach the quarter finals at the US Open. Both, French Open and Wimbledon, were forgettable as they could not go beyond the second round. In the ATP Masters series, they won in Miami in April, which was followed by couple of second round losses in Rome and Montreal.

At Cincinnati though they again found their magical touch as they won the tournament whose highlight was their win over Bryan brothers (Bob and Mike) in the semi finals. This was followed by a semi-final loss in Shanghai.

“We lost to one of the best teams of all time (Bryan brothers). The rest of the year could have been a bit better,” he said. Since the duo hasn’t won a single Grand Slam title this season, winning the prestigious ATP Tour Finals in London that starts a week after the conclusion of Paris Masters, would be a fair compensation.

The second round loss at Paris wouldn’t have helped their cause though. It’s true that on Wednesday, they lost by the narrowest of margins (10-8 in match tie-break). As Paes put it, ‘‘The losing margin was just one point.’’ And the loss wouldn’t affect their rankings or points. Paes however added that “it would have been much nicer to have more matches under the belt going in to London.”

And while they would be keen to win the Tour Finals, their sights would be set on the only two achievements that have eluded them so far as doubles partners… winning the Australian Open and standing on the podium at the Olympics (Paes had won bronze in singles in 1996. The closest they came to winning a medal as a pair was in Athens 2004, where they lost in the semis).

According to Bhupathi, it is a dream for any athlete to stand on the podium at the Olympics. “We’ve come really close as he said. Hopefully, the dream will come true.” Leander echoed similar thoughts. “We have come really close to winning a medal in doubles. Athens being the closest. It’s something that we both want to do, to try and win an Olympic medal.”