Paes, Leander

Leander Paes, (born June 17, 1973, Goa, India), Indian tennis player who was one of the most successful doubles players in tennis history, with 8 career Grand Slam doubles titles and 10 career Grand Slam mixed doubles championships.

Paes began playing tennis at the age of five, and in 1985 he joined a tennis academy in Madras (now Chennai). He won the 1990 Wimbledon junior title and was briefly ranked the number one junior player in the world. Paes joined the Indian Davis Cup team in 1990 and turned professional in 1991. In 1996 when he took the men’s singles tennis bronze medal at the Atlanta Olympic Games, he became the first Indian athlete since 1952 to win an individual Olympic medal.

Paes began a doubles partnership with countryman Mahesh Bhupathi in 1994. In both 1997 and 1998, the duo captured six Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) doubles titles out of the eight tournament finals they reached during each year. Paes and Bhupathi advanced to the doubles finals of all four Grand Slam tournaments in 1999, winning the French Open and Wimbledon but losing in the Australian and U.S. Opens. That year saw the pair ascend to the number one ATP doubles ranking, but personal problems between them soon led to the dissolution of their full-time partnership. Paes and Bhupathi did play together on occasion over the following years, including at the 2001 French Open, which they won for the second time.

Without Bhupathi, Paes continued his doubles success, winning five additional Grand Slam titles with a series of Czech partners: the 2006 U.S. Open (with Martin Damm), the 2009 French and U.S. Opens (both with Lukáš Dlouhý), and the 2012 Australian Open and the 2013 U.S. Open (both with Radek Štěpánek). By winning the Australian title, Paes captured the prestigious career Grand Slam. He also claimed a career Grand Slam in mixed doubles, winning at Wimbledon (1999, 2003, 2010, 2015), the Australian Open (2003, 2010, 2015), the French Open (2016), and the U.S. Open (2008, 2015) with partners Lisa Raymond (1999), Martina Navratilova (2003), Cara Black (2008–10), and Martina Hingis (2015–16).

In 2001 Paes and Bhupathi were awarded the Padma Shri, one of India’s highest civilian honours.