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Leander Paes: A totally charged combatant
There is something about Paes that sets him apart from others. A good player while seeking personal glory, he's all charged up the moment he dons national colours.
There is something about Leander Adrian Paes that sets him apart from other sportsmen.
He is, in fact, a twin personality - a good enough player while seeking personal glory in the professional tennis circuit but change the occasion and invest in him the demands of the national flag and he becomes a totally charged combatant.
He is perhaps amongst the very few sportsmen who motivates himself to great heights when he is wearing the national colours.
He has proved that again and again. His Davis Cup record speaks for itself and then there is that medal moment in the Atlanta Olympics, where some of the tennis greats of the world aspired but Leander sneaked through to the bronze. He rose to great heights there because it was for the cause of his country.
He was new to multi-discipline extravaganzas before the Asian Games in Beijing in 1990. His debut was thus not very encouraging. He made amends four years later in the next edition in Hiroshima, adding to the country's medal tally with a gold in the team event and the doubles in partnership with Gaurav Natekar while claiming a bronze in the singles.
In between, he was very much in the notice of the discerning in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics where he and Ramesh Krishnan stirred the imagination with a fine win over top-seeds John Fitzgerald and Todd Woodbridge of Australia in the quarterfinals.
This experience was to help him four years later in the singles at Atlanta. He progressed to the semi-finals before falling to Andre Agassi but successfully battled Fernando Meligeni of Brazil to win the bronze.
It was the first individual medal for India since 1952 and only Leander with his fighting spirit for his country could have done it.
Since then, Leander has gained in status, particularly in the doubles, where in partnership with Mahesh Bhupathi he has scorched the tennis world.
The two of them were such a hit that they won six out of ten titles on the ATP Circuit in 1997 and were rated among the top ten in the world. A march into the semi-finals of the US Open and the final of the World Doubles Championship at Hartford pushed them into the fourth spot in 1998, a year in which they also reached the semi-finals of the Australian Open.
Then came 1999 and it was even better, with the pair reaching the final of four successive grand slam events, winning the French and Wimbledon titles and still retaining the No. 1 slot in the world, despite losing in the final of the World Doubles Championship.
Though he has not always managed to impress in the various tournaments that form the ATP circuit, Leander has had a tremendous Davis Cup record.
Reputations mean very little to him when it comes to playing in this tournament. There is no other explanation for his superb performance in beating players like Wayne Ferreira, Thomas Enqvist, Jeremy Bates, Jacob Hlasek, Henri Leconte and that amazing serve and volley player - Goran Ivanisevic - among others.
With his known penchant for rising to heights at a given time, there is reason to hope for some great deeds as he long he is there - fighting for the country.
It will be in the doubles where India hopes he will succeed. He and Mahesh have got together again after two years and should recapture the glory they shared together in the late 1990s.
