Paes, the Peter Pan of Indian tennis, the ageless sporting icon of a billion plus people, is set for yet another Olympics at 43 when most of his contemporaries from other sports are leading a far more sedate life.
Seven Olympics in simple arithmetic spell participation on the most glorious sporting stage on the planet for a span of 28 years. Just think about it. Leander Adrian Paes has been doing this for longer than 50 per cent of the population of India has lived. Half of India is below 25.
For Indian sports fans, Paes has been this eternal delight for so long that we have learnt to take him for granted. At 43, the wizened warrior himself says nothing to wet the ardour of his followers. He says nothing by hardly entertaining the thought of retirement. So, Paes keeps going on and, cheekily enough, winning while at it. He notched three mixed doubles Slams last year.
But way back when it all started, Paes was just a kid trying to get rid of a heart ailment. “I was diagnosed with a heart ailment. Exercise was a good antidote. As a child who first held a wooden racquet for wall practice, did I think I would play seven Olympics? Of course not,” Paes says sans dramatisation. We have caught him in his hotel room during the India–South Korea Davis Cup tie in Chandigarh and it’s late. The doubles match that he is slated to play in (and win convincingly, India won the tie 4–1) is two days away and the 18-Slam winner is too wired to sleep.
“Dreams have a tendency to grow when rooted in hard work, else they stay fantasy,” he says philosophically. “I always wanted to emulate my father’s feat of getting an Olympic medal (Dr Vece Paes was part of the Munich Olympic bronze medal-winning hockey squad). And that came my way at Atlanta (1996, Paes won the singles bronze). I had to fight real hard for that medal, what with having a hurt wrist and also then persevering through the play-off for third.”
This story is from the August 2016 edition of Sports Illustrated India.
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This story is from the August 2016 edition of Sports Illustrated India.
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