Name: Leander Adrian Paes
Born: 17 June 1973, Calcutta
State: West Bengal
Sport: Tennis
Early life
Leander Paes was born into a sporting family in Calcutta. His father, Vece Paes, played hockey for India and was part of the squad that won bronze at the 1972 Munich Olympics, while his mother, Jennifer, captained India’s basketball team. He was educated at La Martiniere School and St Xavier’s College in Calcutta before enrolling at the Britannia Amritraj Tennis Academy in Chennai in 1985, where coach Dave O’Meara began shaping the raw talent that would go on to define Indian tennis for the next three decades.
A junior prodigy
Paes announced himself on the world stage by winning the 1990 Wimbledon junior title and rising to number one in the junior world rankings. He turned professional in 1991, and while singles success proved harder to come by at the highest level, his volleying and court craft made him one of the most feared doubles players of his generation almost from the start.
Bronze in Atlanta
Paes’s finest individual achievement came at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, where, playing through a wrist injury, he won the bronze medal in singles, defeating Brazil’s Fernando Meligeni. It made him the first Asian in Olympic history to win a tennis medal, a distinction he still holds as the only Indian to have done so, and he went on to compete at seven Olympic Games between 1992 and 2016, more than any other tennis player in the sport’s history.
The Indian Express
Paes’s partnership with Mahesh Bhupathi, nicknamed “the Indian Express”, became one of the most celebrated in Indian sport. In 1999 the pair reached the final of all four Grand Slams in men’s doubles, winning the French Open and Wimbledon, a feat unprecedented for an Indian team. Their on-off partnership, occasionally strained by disagreements over commitment, still produced a combined record of 303 wins and 103 losses, and they came together again for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Grand Slam records
Over his career, Paes won eight Grand Slam men’s doubles titles and ten mixed doubles titles, partnering players including Martina Navratilova, Cara Black and Martina Hingis. His 2012 Australian Open win completed a career Grand Slam in men’s doubles, and his 2016 French Open mixed doubles title with Hingis completed the same feat in mixed doubles, a double achieved by only a handful of players in the Open era. His 2015 Wimbledon mixed doubles win made him only the second man after Rod Laver to win Wimbledon titles across three different decades.
Davis Cup and later career
Paes represented India in the Davis Cup for thirty years, setting the all-time record for doubles wins in the competition’s history, and he and Bhupathi once put together a run of 24 consecutive Davis Cup doubles victories. He carried the Indian flag at the 2000 Sydney Olympics and remained a fixture on tour into his forties, finally retiring from professional tennis in 2020 after his last Davis Cup tie. In 2024 he was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame, the first Asian man to receive the honour.
Personal life
Paes is a descendant of the Bengali poet Michael Madhusudan Dutt. He was in a long-term relationship with Rhea Pillai, with whom he has a daughter, Aiyana, born in 2005, who has gone on to play tennis herself. Since retiring from the tour, Paes has taken an interest in Indian politics and has also appeared on screen, making his acting debut in the 2013 film “Rajdhani Express.”
Achievements and awards
Bronze medallist, singles, 1996 Atlanta Olympics; eight Grand Slam men’s doubles titles and ten Grand Slam mixed doubles titles; career Grand Slam in both men’s and mixed doubles; most Davis Cup doubles wins in history; seven Olympic Games, a record for tennis; five Asian Games gold medals; Arjuna Award, 1990; Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna, 1996-97; Padma Shri, 2001; Padma Bhushan, 2014; inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame, 2024.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
