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Leander Paes (R) and partner Radek Stepanek
Leander Paes
This man has at last proven that he is not to be written off. After a not-so-good season so far, Leander Paes teamed up with Radek Stepanek to reach the semifinals at Wimbledon.
It is no miracle that the fourth seeds came up with a strong show. Yet again, they found themselves losing at Wimbledon to Ivan Dodig and Marcelo Melo. It was the same pair which had ousted them in the third round last year. At least, Paes is back to winning ways and we can surely expect this pair to win a few tournaments this year.
In mixed doubles, Paes teamed up with young Chinese Zheng Saisai to lose in the second round. He reached the finals last year with Russian Elena Vesnina.
Mahesh Bhupathi
This is his last Wimbledon. Present among the audience, was his daughter Saira to watch her dad play at the most prestigious of all tournaments in tennis.
Entering the doubles draw as eighth seeds, Bhupathi and Julian Knowle too found themselves to be a good pair. They came up with a string of good performances to reach the quarterfinals, but their opponents were the Bryans. They lost the match in three straight tie-breakers.
In the mixed doubles, Bhupathi seemed to be reviving old memories in the last stage of his career. He teamed up with Slovak Daniela Hantuchova. They were the 2005 US Open Champions. Unfortunately, they lost in the very first round.
The rest
India’s lone singles entry Somdev Devvarman lost in the first round of qualifying in the singles.
Other Indians to be placed in the qualifying draw were doubles specialists Purav Raja and Divij Sharan. The upcoming pair qualified for the main draw but failed to make it past the first round in spite of leading two sets to love against Nicolas Monroe and Simon Stadler. Still, they have to be given credit for succeeding in their endeavour to go to the next level. They will surely try to qualify for the US Open main draw as direct entries as there is no qualifying draw for doubles at the US Open.
In all, it was a very good outing for Indians at SW19. There were 5 main draw entries in Men’s Doubles. Two different teams with Indians in them reached the semifinals of a slam for the first time since the US Open in 2009, when Bhupathi and Paes faced each other in the finals. This time there were three Indian quarterfinalists and each was part of a different team. This could perhaps have been the first time in history that such a feat has been achieved, though Lee-Hesh and Bopanna-Qureshi reached the 2011 US Open quarters with the Indo-Pak express proceeding a round further.
Indians seem to have found good partners and with the hard court tournaments coming up , it could be time to rejoice. Also, the US Open has been the favourite slam for Indian players and good results at Flushing Meadows can surely be expected.
