Leander Adrian Paes is an Indian professional tennis player. He is widely considered one of the greatest doubles players in the history of the sport. Paes has won eight doubles and ten mixed doubles Grand Slam titles. He holds the record for the most doubles wins in the Davis Cup. He won a bronze medal for India in singles in the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games.
About Leander Paes in brief
Leander Adrian Paes is an Indian professional tennis player. He is widely considered one of the greatest doubles players in the history of the sport. Paes has won eight doubles and ten mixed doubles Grand Slam titles. He holds the record for the most doubles wins in the Davis Cup. He won a bronze medal for India in singles in the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games. He has announced that he will retire in 2020, which will be his farewell season on the Pro-circuit. He was awarded the highest sporting honor by the government of India, the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award, in 1996–97; the Arjuna Award in 1990; the Padma Shri award in 2001; and India’s third-highest civilian award, the PadMA Bhushan prize in January 2014. He competed in consecutive Olympics from 1992 to 2016, making him the first Indian and only tennis player to compete at seven Olympic games. He earned international fame when he won the 1990 Wimbledon Junior title and rose to no. 1 in the junior world rankings at age 17. In 2010, he announced he would retire from pro tennis at the end of the current season. He plays in World Team Tennis for the Washington Kastles and was named Male MVP for the 2009, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015 championship teams. His first successful year in the ATP circuit came in 1993 when he partnered Sien Lareau to reach the US Open semifinal. In 1994, he reached the quarter-finals of the Australian Open doubles with Kevin Ullyett.
From 1996, he partnered fellow-Indian Mahesh Bhupathi to make his best performance in a Grand Slam year at the beginning of the year. That year he made his best Grand Slam performance in singles, reaching the 32nd round of the Wimbledon Grand Slam. In 1997, he won his first Grand Slam singles title at Wimbledon with a win over Roger Federer in the final. In 1999, he achieved the rare men’s doublesmixed doubles double at the 1999 Wimbledon tournament. His mixed doubles Wimbledon title in 2010 made him the second man to win Wimbledon titles in three decades. His mother captained the Indian basketball team in the 1980 Asian basketball championship. His father was a midfield squad member in the bronze medal-winning Indian field hockey team at the 1972 Munich Olympics although he did not take to the field in any of India’s matches. Leander is a direct descendant of Bengali poet Michael Madhusudan Dutta through his mother. He had a live-in-relationship with Rhea Pillai in 2005, and the couple have a daughter, Aiyana. He joined the Board of Directors of Olympic Gold Quest in 2010, a foundation co-founded by Geet Sethi and Prakash Padukone to support talented Indian athletes. He made his debut in tennis in 1991. He rose to world junior rankings at the Junior US Open and the Junior Wimbledon and he turned professional in 1991, aged 17.
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