When Leander Paes (41) and Martina Hingis (36) won the mixed doubles crown of the Australian Open on Sunday, it wasn’t just a game of tennis. It was a lesson in fortitude, determination and of confronting life’s larger goals with a mixture of humility and chutzpah.
For Hingis, who has won five singles Grand Slams and 11 doubles titles, it was a great comeback. She won the singles crown at the Australian Open in 1997, 1998, 1999. On Sunday, she pushed back time as if it were a curtain of mist to win another crown 20 years later. At 36, few have the drive to bounce back, especially in a sport where women have known to have quit inexplicable while at the top.
In Paes, we see a story that matches his partner’s (without the two retirements that Hingis went through): of incredible determination and of pushing the boundaries imposed by age and misfortune.
Let’s get the stats out of the way: 15 Grand Slams (all in doubles, seven in mixed doubles), Wimbledon titles in three different decades, 100 doubles partners, two decades of Davis Cup encounters, and one Olympic bronze, closing in on his seventh Olympics in Rio.
Sheer force of will
How does limb and nerve and mind hold together for 30 years, when even a niggle on your Achilles tendon on a day can finish everything off?
It’s fitness all right but there are many who are as fit at 40. For Paes, it’s the mind and a searing wish to hang one more Olympic medal by the side of two bronzes that adorn the walls of his home (the other is his father Vece’s hockey bronze from 1972). It could be just for the fun of it, the sheer joy of mocking at time every time you toss up a ball for a chipped serve that grazes the lines and teasingly swerves away from the lunging opponent. Is it country, is it money, is it the feel of glistening sweat , the still robustly pumping heart and all that?
It is easy to give up after a career earning of $7,938,078. Tennis is tough. Tougher than cricket, where players above 40 have played both Test and one dayers. Sachin Tendulkar’s last two years were a drag. In tennis, you cannot drag yourself through a game. You cannot rest a while in the long on boundary. In tennis, every moment there is a danger of the passing shot whizzing past and you, old man, left listless, ashamed, and served yet another reminder from the fairies who keep tab of age.
In the Melbourne semi-final, one such almost whizzed past. Paes was at the net as usual, his reflexes faster than the particles in a cauldron, his bat swings the other way around his back. The point is his. The statement is his. Paes at the net is to marvel at the human mind and body. Anticipating the opponent’s shot from, mid-court he flashes across to his right and bang.
Paes's serves have often been attacked, especially by the Bryan brothers. But then he angles it a bit there, suddenly bangs down a second serve ace, and often, with a serve down the centre, moves across to cut the return.
His drop shots are delectable and much feared and it comes with a daring rush to the net and often a lunge. When he sets himself up for that ferocious forehand, the hand moves in a classic upward curve to meet the ball at the pinnacle of its journey and then sends it back with a straight face of the racquet. Our hearts lunge with that too.
Davis Cup magic
In the Davis Cup World Group play off in Bangalore in November, Paes showed the way to his rather tentative partner Rohan Bopanna against the Serbian pair of Nenad Zimonjic and Illija Bozoljac in a classic five-set doubles win after being two sets down. To watch that match, like this reporter did, was to watch what Paes is really made of. Hitting winners from the back, angling winners from the front, whispering the secrets of doubles game to Bopanna, signalling with his fingers at the back to his partner, chipping and charging and mounting murderous assaults, he was a demon possessed. Bopanna had no choice but to raise his rather nervous game. They won. Or rather Paes won another classic.
Paes’s strength of character and niceness have gone unnoticed. Over the past few years, his erstwhile partner Mahesh Bhupathi was often alleged to be gunning for him by ganging up the other players. Once an effort was made to send him out of the Olympics team. On another occasion, purportedly instigated by Bhupati, a players union was formed and letters shot of to the babus of the All India Tennis Association, the intention of all of which was to sideline Paes. Not a world escaped his lips and it was a sight to see Paes encouraging one of the rebels during the Serbia tennis match.
Through all that he showed what we lesser countrymen never had: to struggle to excel, to lunge that extra bit, to dig in, to believe that barriers are crossable, to overcome situations in which we all raise the white of surrender and fade away.
At the age when many sports stars are doing school runs, Paes has raised a Slam trophy to the skies. We haven’t yet realised the grandeur of his tennis life. One day we will. Maybe we are waiting for him to serve for the last time.
Binoo John is a senior journalist and author. He blogs at binoojohn.wordpress.com.
For Hingis, who has won five singles Grand Slams and 11 doubles titles, it was a great comeback. She won the singles crown at the Australian Open in 1997, 1998, 1999. On Sunday, she pushed back time as if it were a curtain of mist to win another crown 20 years later. At 36, few have the drive to bounce back, especially in a sport where women have known to have quit inexplicable while at the top.
In Paes, we see a story that matches his partner’s (without the two retirements that Hingis went through): of incredible determination and of pushing the boundaries imposed by age and misfortune.
Let’s get the stats out of the way: 15 Grand Slams (all in doubles, seven in mixed doubles), Wimbledon titles in three different decades, 100 doubles partners, two decades of Davis Cup encounters, and one Olympic bronze, closing in on his seventh Olympics in Rio.
Sheer force of will
How does limb and nerve and mind hold together for 30 years, when even a niggle on your Achilles tendon on a day can finish everything off?
It’s fitness all right but there are many who are as fit at 40. For Paes, it’s the mind and a searing wish to hang one more Olympic medal by the side of two bronzes that adorn the walls of his home (the other is his father Vece’s hockey bronze from 1972). It could be just for the fun of it, the sheer joy of mocking at time every time you toss up a ball for a chipped serve that grazes the lines and teasingly swerves away from the lunging opponent. Is it country, is it money, is it the feel of glistening sweat , the still robustly pumping heart and all that?
It is easy to give up after a career earning of $7,938,078. Tennis is tough. Tougher than cricket, where players above 40 have played both Test and one dayers. Sachin Tendulkar’s last two years were a drag. In tennis, you cannot drag yourself through a game. You cannot rest a while in the long on boundary. In tennis, every moment there is a danger of the passing shot whizzing past and you, old man, left listless, ashamed, and served yet another reminder from the fairies who keep tab of age.
In the Melbourne semi-final, one such almost whizzed past. Paes was at the net as usual, his reflexes faster than the particles in a cauldron, his bat swings the other way around his back. The point is his. The statement is his. Paes at the net is to marvel at the human mind and body. Anticipating the opponent’s shot from, mid-court he flashes across to his right and bang.
Paes's serves have often been attacked, especially by the Bryan brothers. But then he angles it a bit there, suddenly bangs down a second serve ace, and often, with a serve down the centre, moves across to cut the return.
His drop shots are delectable and much feared and it comes with a daring rush to the net and often a lunge. When he sets himself up for that ferocious forehand, the hand moves in a classic upward curve to meet the ball at the pinnacle of its journey and then sends it back with a straight face of the racquet. Our hearts lunge with that too.
Davis Cup magic
In the Davis Cup World Group play off in Bangalore in November, Paes showed the way to his rather tentative partner Rohan Bopanna against the Serbian pair of Nenad Zimonjic and Illija Bozoljac in a classic five-set doubles win after being two sets down. To watch that match, like this reporter did, was to watch what Paes is really made of. Hitting winners from the back, angling winners from the front, whispering the secrets of doubles game to Bopanna, signalling with his fingers at the back to his partner, chipping and charging and mounting murderous assaults, he was a demon possessed. Bopanna had no choice but to raise his rather nervous game. They won. Or rather Paes won another classic.
Paes’s strength of character and niceness have gone unnoticed. Over the past few years, his erstwhile partner Mahesh Bhupathi was often alleged to be gunning for him by ganging up the other players. Once an effort was made to send him out of the Olympics team. On another occasion, purportedly instigated by Bhupati, a players union was formed and letters shot of to the babus of the All India Tennis Association, the intention of all of which was to sideline Paes. Not a world escaped his lips and it was a sight to see Paes encouraging one of the rebels during the Serbia tennis match.
Through all that he showed what we lesser countrymen never had: to struggle to excel, to lunge that extra bit, to dig in, to believe that barriers are crossable, to overcome situations in which we all raise the white of surrender and fade away.
At the age when many sports stars are doing school runs, Paes has raised a Slam trophy to the skies. We haven’t yet realised the grandeur of his tennis life. One day we will. Maybe we are waiting for him to serve for the last time.
Binoo John is a senior journalist and author. He blogs at binoojohn.wordpress.com.
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