We should all bow before the legend that is
Leander, says Rahul Jacob.
IMAGE: Leander Paes in Bengaluru after making
his last appearance at a tournament in India. Photograph: PTI Photo
As a child
growing up in Kolkata, Leander Paes had an unusual Sunday morning ritual.
After
returning home from church with his parents, he would polish the bronze medal
his father Vece received as a member of the Indian hockey team at the Munich
Olympics in 1972.
Paes's
greatness as a tennis player, especially when playing for India, perhaps owes
something to this talismanic routine.
His comment
about buffing his father's medal was made at a special ceremony at the ATP
Challenger event in Bengaluru to commemorate his last appearance at a
tournament in India.
Surrounded by
former Olympians, who were hockey players and athletes, Paes explained how the
weekly routine made him understand that sports achievements take 'years and
years of dedication'.
This seemed
too commonplace an explanation for a career that has always had something of
the mythological about it.
Consider just
his longevity; Paes is retiring this year at 46, three decades after winning
the Wimbledon and US Open Boy's Singles titles in 1990.
He has made his
name as a doubles great by winning 18 Grand Slams titles, including a mixed
doubles career Grand Slam with the Swiss star Martina Hingis.
In a video
shown at the Bengaluru ceremony, the legendary Martina Navratilova remarked
that, as she chased Billie Jean King's record of 20 titles at Wimbledon in
2003, she decided early on that she would rather have Paes on her side of the
net than play against him.
Photograph: Julian Finney/Getty Images
Paes has
arguably been the greatest volleyer in doubles the world has ever seen.
His signature
vigorous shake of his playing hand from elbow down as he readied himself for a
point to begin ought to be emulated because it helped him produce sublime
volleys.
Even in
Bengaluru, when he and partner Mathew Ebden battled through a final set sudden
death 10-point tiebreaker to reach the finals, one of his backhand volleys
played a part in propelling the pair to victory.
In tennis, a
groundstroke slammed straight at the player at the net can be the hardest to
volley.
Counterintuitively,
Paes, a ferociously aggressive poacher at the net, deliberately walked into
such enemy fire, creating winners instead with the flick of his wrist.
His trademark
chipped backhand return of serve is a hybrid stroke that could be labelled a
sort of half-volley, feeding off the pace of an opponent's serve and
redirecting it to catch opponents off guard.
Through his
caree, his service returns floated like a leaf on a breeze onto the tramlines
of the doubles court.
IMAGE: Leander and Martina Hingis celebrate
winning the 2015 Australian Open mixed doubles title. Photograph: Cameron
Spencer/Getty Images
Paes's
mediocre record as a singles player, where he never broke into the top 50, is a
mystery.
He lacked a
killer shot beyond his volley and perhaps the killer instinct in singles as
well. His height, at 5'10", was short by tennis standards.
He did not
have the huge serve that propelled serve and volley tennis's last exponents --
Pete Sampras, Goran Ivanisevic and Pat Rafter -- to wins.
The rare
exception was miraculously in the Davis Cup where Paes was often an
overachiever on the singles court.
He beat the
likes of Henri Leconte (in France on clay in the 1990s) to take India into the
semi finals in 1993 and, on other occasions, Wayne Ferreira and Ivanisevic.
In each
instance, the wide gap in rankings might have suggested the contests would be a
walkover.
Instead, as
Ivanisevic remarked, Paes could sometimes seem like 'two persons'; the tribute
captured Paes's speed around the net, but also aptly described his alter ego
that showed up at singles matches when playing for India.
Playing with
a wrist injury, he won a bronze of his own in singles at the Atlanta Olympics
in 1996, losing to Andre Agassi in the semis.
Paes, like
Vijay Amritraj before him, played the Davis Cup with a passion and tenacity
that they did not bring often enough to their singles.
Photograph: Cameron Spencer/Getty Images
Paes'S desire
to stay on the Indian team in the past few years, when selectors looked past
his ranking to include him, sparked controversy, but one can only look back
with gratitude.
The sports
pages from Paes's last tournament in India carried a sense of deja vu.
As all the Indians playing singles in the Bengaluru Open crashed out in the
round of 16, The Hindu's story was headlined: 'Paes lights up an
otherwise dark day for Indians'.
As the poetic
sports writer Rohit Brijnath put it after Paes's heroics in a hard-fought tie
against Pakistan back in 2006, 'One day his worn out legs will revolt, his
lungs will mutiny, his shoulder will press charges, and then, finally,
reluctantly, he'll drag himself off court... He'll go one day, but we won't
forget, we can't, we shouldn't.'
Reams have
been written about Paes's unlikely Davis Cup wins, but this notion of him being
at his best as the sum of different parts was vividly illustrated in his mixed
doubles wins with Martina Navratilova and Martina Hingis.
Mixed doubles
is an under-appreciated part of Grand Slam events but is like chess on a tennis
court; the male partner seeks to blunt the raw power of his male opponent by
poaching at the net while the woman player's canny ground strokes and volleys
create opportunities.
No pair in
recent memory has excelled at this as Paes and Hingis did, that too late in
their careers -- indeed after the Swiss had returned from retirement.
After
Hingis-Paes's crushing 6-1, 6-1 win at Wimbledon in the 2015 finals, the BBC
commentator said that it was the best display of mixed doubles he had seen.
IMAGE: Leander Paes and Martina Hingis
celebrate winning the Wimbledon mixed doubles title. Photograph: Shaun Botterill/Getty
Images
The joy that
Paes brought to a tennis court was at its most infectious in mixed doubles.
I was
courtside at the Australian Open in 2016 watching him and Hingis as defending
champions romp through an early round.
They made a
handsome couple from the Hollywood of yesteryear: There has always been
something of Harry Belafonte in Paes's star quality and smile while Hingis in
her thirties looked like Audrey Hepburn.
There was so
much laughter alongside audaciously stylish tennis that it seemed both a club
match and a Grand Slam event.
IMAGE: Leander and Martina Navratilova after
winning the mixed doubles title at Wimbledon in 2003. Photograph: Mike
Hewitt/Getty Images.
Paes has been
endearingly -- and entertainingly -- content to play second fiddle to his
legendary women partners after the match.
Playing team
tennis for the Washington Kastles some years ago, he responded to winning the
match by kneeling and placing Hingis's foot on his knee as if he was polishing
her shoes.
In the
moments after he partnered Navratilova to help her win what had seemed for her
a long elusive 20th Wimbledon title in 2003, the great champion, then 46, moved
to hug him.
Paes
responded with a chivalrous, perfectly timed bow, theatrically raising his
hands as if about to prostrate himself before that legendary queen of Centre
Court.
Minutes
later, during the customary mixed doubles presentation in the royal box, Paes
waved off congratulations from the assembled grandees while continuing to
applaud Navratilova.
In Bengaluru,
it was undeniably his moment, but Paes's speech deflected the praise on to the
Olympians on stage and to his parents. Paes received a standing ovation and a
turban festooned in gold, but in retrospect we should all have bowed before the
legend that is Leander.