Wimbledon 2015: Leander Paes breaks all the rules on the way to becoming a legend Doubles

Think of great players and doubles pairs will inevitably think: McEnroe and Fleming, Woodforde and Woodbridge and the Bryan brothers. On the women’s side, you have Navratilova and Shriver and the Williams sisters.
After all, a good doubles team is like a good marriage – stick partners for years, come to understand each others strengths and weaknesses and learn to complement each other.
And then there’s Leander Paes.
On Sunday, Paes won the mixed-doubles title at Wimbledon with Martina Hingis to give him 16 Grand Slam titles in his career – eight men’s doubles and mixed eighth. However, its difficult to associate with any one of the partners – whether in men or mixed doubles.

Paes last month reached a century of partners in the men’s game in itself is not unusual. He is the 47th player to do so. But, however, the first player to do so and earn more than 50 titles and 700 games.
He has won Grand Slams in four different partners, starting with the French Open and Wimbledon with Mahesh Bhupathi in 1999. More success came with Martin Damm, Lukas Dlouhy and Radek Stepanek. Of these four, Paes is most strongly linked with Bhupathi and Stepanek, but apart from rising Bhupathi and Paes in 1999, when they reached the final of the four Grand Slams, it’s hard to choose a time signature that could represent a race.
Paes has also had 24 pairs in mixed doubles, winning Grand Slam titles with four of them – Lisa Raymond, Martina Navratilova, Cara Black and Martina Hingis – while reaching the finals with two other people.
In this sense, Paes is unique in having so successful while chopping and changing everything you have. It is a tribute to his ability not only to pick the right partners, but to engage them quickly to produce their best on the pitch.
He has proven over the years that he has the ability to gel with players from different backgrounds and ages. Raymond was 25 when he won Wimbledon with Paes in 1999. At the other end of the scale, Navratilova was 47 when she and Paes won Wimbledon only four years later.
What unites them is that both are great doubles players. Raymond is a former World No. 1 women’s doubles and Navratilova is one of the greatest players ever to play the game. They also chose to play with Paes is a testament to what they thought of their skills as well. It was Navratilova who insisted that her partner Paes and not vice versa.
On the court, Paes has a gift to make your partner feel like a million dollars. Hingis has said repeatedly over it feels invincible on the court with his hand Paes
“Leander has been there and done that before. He has given me a lot of confidence and we have great chemistry,” Hingis said after winning the Australia Open.
Its chemical occurred several times in the commentary on Sunday as defenseless destroyed their opponents in straight sets.
It is this chameleon-like ability to merge with who is next to him on the court that has allowed him to build Paes arguably the greatest professional tennis career of any Indian, with due respect for Vijay Krishnan Amritaj and family. And why he has been able to win Grand Slams in their 40s and in three different decades.
“The first thing is to know yourself very well,” Paes said after winning the mixed doubles with Hingis Australia Open in January this year. “If you know yourself very well and are honest with yourself about your strengths and weaknesses as important, then you choose a partner whose strengths are his weaknesses.”