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Paes, Bhupathi crack money-spinners' list

Click for bigger picture  Pic: Alex Livesey/Allsport

Two Grand Slam titles, we all know about.

But Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi, with their back to back Slam wins at Roland Garros and Wimbledon, have notched up another achievement -- they now rank in the top 25 in the world in terms of prize money earnings.

The ATP prize-money rankings, released on Monday, shows Paes and Bhupathi ranked at No 18 and 22, with $454,325 and $415,469 respectively against their names. And it pays to remember that this does not include mixed doubles earnings, which the ATP does not take into consideration when calculating prize money rankings.

In addition to the 186,420 pounds ($325,000) Paes shared with Bhupathi for the doubles triumph, thus, he had also picked up 39,590 pounds as his share of the mixed doubles prize money, after winning the title in partnership with Lisa Raymond.

With three doubles titles, a mixed doubles title and a bit from singles, Paes has earned a whooping $385,000 in the last 30 days. Interestingly, that was the amount Paes was able to earn in the first six years of his career, till the end of 1996. His earnings have now gone over the $2 million mark overall, with approximately two-thirds of it coming from doubles play. Bhupathi's career earnings are just above $1.5 million.

The relevant section of the ATP rankings list reads as under:

                    Rank  Money      Money     Money made
Rank Player         Diff  This Week  Last Week this week
18 Paes, Leander    12    454,325    295,112   159,213
19 Kucera, Karol     1    444,770    394,081    50,689
20 Bjorkman, Jonas  -4    444,495    406,992    37,503
21 Medvedev, Andrei -3    418,501    400,756    17,745
22 Bhupathi, Mahesh 17    415,469    264,956   150,513

Besides the monetary windfall, Paes and Bhupathi have in recent weeks scored heavily on the ATP points scale as well. The new rankings and individual points for doubles (based on 52 weeks of points) shows Paes, with 4913 points, at No 1, and Bhupathi, with 4857, at No 2.

And what is more, they have no rivals in sight. Over 1500 points separate Bhupathi from the No 3 player, Sandon Stolle. The tenth-ranked player, Ellis Ferreira, has roughly only half the number of points Paes has earned.

The Woodies, Mark Woodforde and Todd Woodbridge, have meanwhile dropped to their lowest ranking in years, at 13 and 15, after losing a heap of points at Wimbledon where they were finalists last year. This is indication enough that the legendary Woodies, with over 50 career titles to their name, are on the way out. And that seems a bit of a pity, at a time when they need just five or six more titles to become the all-time best doubles team.

In a sense, the Indians take responsibility for the present plight of the Woodies. Two years ago, when the Paes-Bhupathi partnership was just getting into gear, they had said their ultimate goal was to displace the Woodies as the best doubles pair in the world. And ever since the Woodies lost to the Indians at the Shanghai final late last year, they haven't had consistently good results.

                                                 Pts     Pts                                
                                       Rank This    Last           Trn   Bon  # Of         
Rank  Player            Nat  Diff    Week Week  +/-   Pts   Pts  Trn
   
1  Leander Paes       IND   0    4913    4019    894  4130  783  21
2  Mahesh Bhupathi  IND   0    4857    3948    909  4112  745  26
3  Sandon Stolle       AUS  1    3336    3254     82  2722  614  26
4  Olivier Delaitre      FRA  2    3262    2855    407  2629  633  26
5  Paul Haarhuis       NED  -2    3079    3301   -222  2556  523  22

In team rankings, which are calculated on the basis of points earned in the calendar year, Paes/Bhupathi are No 1 with 2972 points, and Ferreira/Leach at No 2 with 1743 points. Only 10 teams have gone over 1000 points, while the 11th ranked team has less than 1/3rd of the points secured by the Indians.

One offshoot of this is that the Indians can now afford to rest their injuries, and play with different partners for a bit before they team up again for the US Open, without hurting their rankings.

                                                                       Points Points Points
                                                              Rank  This    Last   Gained
Rank Team                                             Diff  Week   Week  This Week         

1 Bhupathi, Mahesh / Paes, Leander        0   2972    2016     956
2 Ferreira, Ellis / Leach, Rick                   0   1743    1697      46
3 Bjorkman, Jonas / Rafter, Patrick          0   1637    1433     204
4 Black, Wayne / Stolle, Sandon              0   1539    1365     174
5 Woodforde, Mark / Woodbridge, Todd   1   1373    1177     196
 

Mahesh, thus, will be playing with Yevgeny Kafelnikov in the Stuttgart Open in 2 weeks, whereas Paes plans to play with Jonas Bjorkman at a couple of tournaments this summer while Bhupathi is away playing some singles.

Media reports have attempted to play this up as an indication that Paes and Bhupathi are "checking out other partners", and "preparing for a split", after the victories at the French Open and Wimbledon. Which is to ignore the fact that Bhupathi has played with Rick Leach, Yevgeny Kafelnikov, Peter Tramacchi, etc over the last two years, while Paes has partnered Piet Norval, Mark Keil, Peter Tramacchi, etc in '97 and '98 -- and this, when the Indian pair were racing to the top of the doubles tree.

Leander's father, Dr Vece Paes, best summed up the situation when he proferred one crisp line of advice to the media and critics. "Just leave them alone - don't confuse them with advice!".

Right. Just leave them alone -- and watch them go!