Still going strong at age of 46, veteran Leander Paes reached the semifinals of the ATP Hall of Fame Open with partner Marcus Daniell, edging out Matthew Ebden and Robert Lindstedt here.
The third seeded Indo-Kiwi combination prevailed 6-4 5-7 14-12 over the Australian-Swede team in the quarterfinals after saving three match points.
Paes, who made his Hall of Fame Open debut way back in 1995, is now the oldest ATP Tour semi-finalist since John McEnroe (47) at 2006 San Jose.
“These are the nights that I live for. The hard work, playing when you have fever, being in the gym when you don’t really want to be there. Most people see us travelling to lovely places and being on show courts, but the hard yards are what allow me to still compete at this level,” Paes was quoted as saying.
The winner of 18 Grand Slam titles asserted that he still has a lot in his tank.
“The experience is still there, the legs are still there, the knowledge and strokes are there. It’s about finding the right doubles partners and I’ll have success. Being a student of life and the game, I used to try to learn from the older players. Now, I try to learn from the younger ones,” he told ATP website.
It is fourth time this season that Paes has reached the semifinals on the ATP World Tour, reaching the same stage at Lyon (May), Marrakech (April) and Montpellier (February) in the first half of the season.
“I have to work three times as hard now as I did 10 or 15 years ago. That’s just age, but I love the work. When I was younger, I’d waste a lot of energy practising for five or six hours a day.
“My training is very specific now, focusing on improving specific areas of my game, focusing on my diet and recovery. The knowledge we have nowadays in tennis on fitness, health and recovery is why the margins of winning and losing are so slim.”
With 766 tour wins, Paes is sixth on the all-time doubles match winners’ list. He is just one of six players to pick up 750 tour-level doubles match wins, which he achieved in April 2018.
Next up for Paes and Daniell are Marcel Granollers and Sergiy Stakhovsky.
Elsewhere, in Hamburg, 21-year-old Sumit Nagal impressed with a 7-5, 6-2 win over higher-ranked Sebastian Ofner to to progress to the second qualifying round of the ATP 500 event. The Indian, ranked 205 in the world, won in straight sets against Ofner (ranked 138) to put himself one win away from the main draw of the tournament.
“I served well on the crucial points. I fought well and was very solid when the rallies were going more than 4-5 shots. I was very motivated and pumped up to go on court. I am looking forward to tomorrow’s match,” Nagal told PTI.
The 21-year-old from Haryana next faces Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, the world number 128 and third seed from Spain.
Nagal has enjoyed stupendous success in the last few weeks in the Challenger circuit, where he made five semifinals in seven tournaments.
In the process he recorded the biggest win of his career when he beat world number 56 Martin Klizan at Bratisilava Open, last month.
If Nagal qualifies for Hamburg Open, it will be only his second main draw on the ATP World Tour but first at the ATP 500 level, having competed at the Tata Open Maharashtra in 2018 as a qualifier.
He had started the year outside 350-bracket but is now very close to top-200. Is he doing anything different to get consistent results?
“To be honest, I am enjoying being on tennis courts and fighting, that’s all. When you are happy and looking forward to step on the court every day, things go well,” he insisted.
(With PTI inputs)
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