India's top doubles team seeks another French Open win

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India’s Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi are eagerly awaiting Saturday’s French Open doubles final, which could mark a grand turnaround for them after last year’s bitter separation.

The former world number one pair reached the final with a 6-3, 3-6, 6-4 win over Americans Michael Hill and Jeff Tarango and have already risen to number two in the 2001 ATP doubles rankings.

It is the French title, however, that the two 27-year-olds want most.

“We’re really excited. But now it’s time to focus on the big match. We don’t want to come so close and miss out in the grand final,” Bhupathi told Reuters from Paris on Friday.

Bhupathi and Paes, known as Indian Express on the circuit, face Czech pair Petr Pala and Pavel Vizner in the final.

“We know we are kind of the favorites now,” Bhupathi said. “But a final is not about tennis, it’s about the mind. We’ve been there before and we want to make sure we do things right.”

Bhupathi and Paes won the title at Roland Garros in 1999, when they became the first pair in over 45 years to reach the finals of all four Grand Slams in the same year and also won the Wimbledon crown.

They finished the season as the world’s No. 1 pair but 2000 was tumultuous for them. Battling personal problems they split early in the year before getting back together again just before the Sydney Olympics.

Bhupathi and Paes won the Japan Open in Tokyo last year but struggled for consistency before reaching the semifinals of the Monte Carlo Masters and winning ATP events last month in Atlanta and Houston.

“We pulled off some good pressure matches and all of a sudden started to believe in ourselves again,” Bhupathi said.

“I think a key match was against Japan in the Davis Cup in April when we were down two sets to one and came back in adverse conditions.”

They won the match and India went on to take the zonal tie 3-2.

“A lot of people told us at the start of the year we wouldn’t make it big together again. But we knew what we were capable of,” Bhupathi said.

“We have made the sacrifices, put in the hard work and now we’re going to reap the rewards.”

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This is good stuff from Indians. I wonder if they plan to develop more players like Paes. Also, I don’t think Indian players have so far made it big in the singles. But well, they have made a start… and to be in the final of a grand slam for doubles is a stupendous achievement. Win or lose, they have done a good job!

Bravo!

http://www3.pak.org/gupshup/smilies/ok.gif

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Thank you Pristine. You made me so happy. Atlast, someone who has heard of the French Open !!
By the way, Leander Paes has won a SINGLES Tennis Bronze in the Olympics.

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chilli,

I hope India has a Tennis Academy or something to promote talent. No doubt Paes is wonderful, and he has enormous talent. His winning ways must have created lots of interest in this game in India. Indians will do well to use this opportunity to lure in more talent to this game. Tennis is, afterall, a more expensive game with limited following compared to cricket or football.

I am sure you guys noticed as to what happened to Squash in Pakistan. We had great players, Jahangir and Jansher Khan. They won everything under the sun. We thought we are invincible. But we never developed a strategy to train our new talent properly. Consequently as soon as Jansher called it quits, now Pakistan is no where on the radar screen of international squash. Truly sad.

Anyway, I will be tuning in to find out how did Paes & co do in the doubles final. Keep us informed. :)

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Yes, India does have a tennis academy and there are quite a few emerging talents.Infact Leander Paes is the product of the academy.

Leander has not been the only Indian player to make news in the International Arena in India's modest Tennis history.
Vijay Amritraj and Ramesh Krishnan have made international headlines in the past. Vijay reached the Quarter Finals of Wimbledon(1973, 1981) and US Open (1973,1974).Ramesh made it till the Quarter Finals of Wimbledon(1987) and US Open(1981,1987).The Indian team has reached the FINALS of the prestigious DAVIS CUP atleast once when they lost to SWEDEN.

[This message has been edited by chilli (edited June 09, 2001).]

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Yahoooooooooooooooo!!
PAES - BHUPATI are FRENCH OPEN CHAMPS !!

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well Done, Congrats. Hopefully you will be equally enthusiastic when other subcontinent teams or players win in other games as well.

I hope the pair can repeat their sucess later on this month, at Wimbeldon as well.

[This message has been edited by ehsan (edited June 09, 2001).]

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[quote]
Originally posted by ehsan:
*well Done, Congrats. Hopefully you will be equally enthusiastic when other subcontinent teams or players win in other games as well.
*
[/quote]

more than anything else.. do indians care. afterall it is a game played all over world and still if paes bhupati win, none cares. none cares for gopichand who won world title or anand. all they worry about is cricket though cricket is played in some 7-8 countries unlike these games where u really have to compete all round world. cricket has eaten up all other games and mediocre cricketer is better known than world champion in other games.

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I quite agree ZZ, I remember once watching an interview of jehangir Khan, who as a sportsman is probably heads and shoulders above any sportsman the subcontinent has produced in the last 50 years at least. Look at his record, five years unbeaten in the squash world, not only did he not lose a match, he never lost a game during that period. Yet his status within Pakistan was far less than any cricketer. In that interview Jehangir said that when Pakistan cricket team won the world cup the whole nation turned out to greet them, yet when he used to return home after winning squash world championship, a few people and his family used to be at the Karachi airport to receive him. What a pity!!!. We should learn to treat all our sporting heroes equally.

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ZZ rightly said...CRICKET is NOT even a truly international game.
But how many Indians know that Indian football star Bhaichung Bhutia is playing for Bury in the English football league.Or take the case of hockey. India has had some brilliant players in the last two decades - Zafar Iqbal, Mohammad Shahid, Pargat Singh, Dhanraj Pillai, Mukesh Kumar to name a few. But I am sure only a handful of Indians remember their names. However ordinary cricketing names like Raju Kulkarni,Chandrakant Pandit, Kirti Azad etc. will immediately ring a bell in most Indians' mind. I too admit to not remembering the name of the player who Gopichand defeated to win the All-England but I sure have the name of the 12th man in the 1983 World Cup Final Indian team(Sunil Walson) itched in my mind.Blame it to the media coverage.How much recall-value does Shahbaz, a former mercurial Pakistani Hockey player, have in Pakistan? Surely not much.And Ehsan has already talked about Jehangir Khan....

The fact that players who have excelled in non-cricket sports in the subcontinent have done so without much financial or infrastructural support makes their achievements even more spectacular and special.

Also, one thing that is often not talked about is that the lack of much media attention to non-cricket games has allowed the governing bodies of these games to play politics and favourtism in team selection and swindle money meant for game promotion, training and nurturing talents . Indian Hockey Federation is one such body. Quite regularly players are selected and dropped for no apparent performance related reason/s.Since it is NOT often that the media goes to town about it, it allows the involved authorities to literally get away with murder.Kunjurani, who won the Olympics bronze medal in weightlifting almost did not make it to Sydney due to last minute canvassing against her.Contrast this to the scrutiny that India's cricket team selection undergoes by the media everytime.
As ZZ said, does anybody care ?

[This message has been edited by chilli (edited June 10, 2001).]

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chilli agreed. We ignore some of our gifted atheletes in other sports. Pakistan ignored farjad saif when he was playing so well in table tennis, and for the longest time our squash greats took a waay back seat to cricket players.

It was a shame to see legendary international players liek jehangir and jansher khan's victories play second fiddle to abdl qadir's bowling.

In subcontinent we need to recognize and appreciate atheletes who have made it on their own and are world class. After all such a huge population base does have talent to excel in other sports..as evident by the french open victory and as shown over and over again by jehnagir and jansher khan.

we need support and we need infrastructure..

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Most importantly we need the media. Former and current Tennis players like Stefen Edberg , Andre Agassi, Boris Becker, Steffi Graph etc. have become household names in India ever since the state-owned TV (Doordarshan) started telecasting live Grand Slam tournaments quarter Final onwards. ESPN came much later. So even though most Indians would not have played a game of Tennis in their life, a lot of them now understand the game.
The coverage and the quality of Telecast of most domestic games besides Cricket is pathetic, if at all. Corporate Sponsorships can help "glamourize" these games but its easy to get it only when the game is followed widely. So , in a way it becomes a vicious circle.And hence everything remains as it is.

[This message has been edited by chilli (edited June 11, 2001).]

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Agree with all you guys!
One more fact, whenever Pakistani cricket team goes to another country, the government pays all the expenses for the team. (Hotels, eating, going to the clubs night before your World Cup final, cost of beer etc.)
And when Pakistani hockey team goes to another country, the Pakistani hockey federation had to pay all the expenses from their pockets rather than the government.

Thank you, come again

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Hain…??? Who told you that?

http://www3.pak.org/gupshup/smilies/smile.gif

No, my friend… the expenses of cricket team are always borne by PCB (Pak Cricket Board), though, they are a far richer organization than PHF (Hockey). Also, many times PIA and hotels provide sponsorship ticket/stay to the cricket team. The cricketers are also paid a very generous daily allowance.

These expenses are NEVER borne by the government.