Veteran Indian tennis star Leander Paes and his Czech partner Radek Stepanek have been forced to exit the Australian Open after losing their men's doubles quarterfinals on Wednesday at Melbourne Park.
Mahesh Bhupathi, Rohan Bopanna and Harsh Mankad are the other members of the team for the April 4-6 Davis Cup tie in Kolkata.
Leander Paes and Sania Mirza entered the quarter-finals of the mixed doubles of the tennis event, beating the Serbian pair of Nenad Zimonjic and Ana Ivanovic in staright sets. The Indian pair won 6-2, 6-4 in only 64 minutes and set up a last eight meeting with top seeds Max Mirnyi and Victoria Azarenka of Belarus.
Paes and the Czech Republic's Rikl defeated fifth seed Australian duo Wayne Arthurs and Paul Hanley 6-3, 6-2.
Few are aware of the fact that Leander Paes completed two decades in tennis this year, two decades in which he represented the country in Davis Cup while achieving a lot of success on the professional tour as well.
Leander Paes dished out yet another virtuoso performance to win the US Open men's doubles trophy, taking his Grand Slam tally to 10, but his taste for success is far from being cloyed.
Both were knocked out of the men's doubles in the second round at the Rome Masters.
In what seems to be a mouth-watering clash for Indian tennis fans, Rohan Bopanna set up a semi-final clash with veteran Leander Paes after the two players won their respective mixed doubles matches on Day 8 of the US Open in New York, on Monday.
India's Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi won their respective doubles matches to set up a quarter-final clash at the Miami Masters.
Leander Paes and Paul Hanley of Australia were ousted in the quarter-finals of the men's doubles at the Pacific Life Open on Tuesday. The eighth seeded Paes and Hanley lost 2-6, 1-6 to third seeds Daniel Nestor of Canada and Nenad Zimonjic of Serbia.
In a match that sowed the seeds of dissention in the Indian team, Pakistan's Aqeel Khan thinks he would have always liked to play the fifth rubber against Leander Paes in the Davis Cup Asia Oceania relegation play-off tie in Mumbai in April 2006.
India had mixed fortunes at the Australian Open as Leander Paes got off to a winning start in mixed doubles but it was end of the road for the fourth-seeded pair of Sania Mirza and her doubles partner, Czech, Barbora Strycova in the women's doubles event.
AITA chief Anil Khanna says Indian men stand a chance of winning a medal at the Rio Olympics, though mixed doubles remains the country's best bet.
The seventh seeded pair of Indian veteran Leander Paes and Austrian Alexander Peya advanced to the French Open second round after notching a three-set victory in their opening men's doubles match at the Roland Garros in Paris. Paes-Peya defeated Italians Simone Bolelli and Fabio Fognini 6-1, 6-7 (2), 6-3 in a contest lasting a little over two hours.
Indian captain Leander Paes on Wednesday said that he chose Mahesh Bhupathi ahead of him in the doubles slot for the Davis Cup tie against Uzbekistan considering his terrific form in the Australian Open.
Leander Paes has done it all for Indian tennis in a career spanning more than two decades. He won an Olympic medal, won countless Grand Slam trophies and guided the national team to some unbelievable wins at the Davis Cup level.
The fifth seeded pair won 7-5, 6-4 against the tenth seeded pair of Leos Fridel of Czech Republic and Liezel Huber of South Africa in the semifinals.
Leander Paes and Elena Vesnina stunned top seeds Bob Bryan and Liezel Huber to enter the mixed doubles final of the Wimbledon championships, on Saturday.
He and Donald Johnson made a first round exit from the $800,000 grass court tournament in Halle, Germany.
The Indo-Czech pair clinched one of the three remaining berths for season-ending event from Nov 8 to 16.
Having ticked off all the boxes during an eventful 2016, a 'hungry' Leander Paes is in search of a new partner with an aim to take his coveted Grand Slam titles tally to 20.
Despite Mahesh Bhupathi lashing out at him in public over the selection of the men's doubles team for the London Olympics, Leander Paes refused to react and said he is ready to play with his former partner.
They set up a clash with Samantha Stosur and Paul Hanley of Australia in the semi-finals which will be played on Thursday.
The seventh seeded Indian pair beat Galina Voskoboeva of Kazakhstan and Italy's Daniele Bracciali 6-4, 6-2 in the semi-finals on Wednesday. They will meet Poland's Klaudia Jans-Ignacik and Santiago Gonzalez of Mexico, who got the better of the fifth seeds, India's Leander Paes-Elena Vesnina of Russia 7-6 (7-2), 6-3 in the second semi-final.
His US Open triumph made him, at 40, the oldest man to win a major title in the open era. Bikash Mohapatra believes Leander Paes's decision to switch to doubles at the peak of his singles career is the reason behind his longevity.
Mahesh Bhupathi returned to Grand Slam action with a first-round win at the Australian Open but Leander Paes' bid fell flat at the first hurdle, in Melbourne, on Wednesday.
Leander's father said tennis legend Martina Navratilova has rekindled his son's zest for the game.\n\n
Few Indian players can handle the media as well as Leander Paes does. And at 36, he is not getting any younger. Asked if he intended to play at the next Olympic Games in London, Leander nodded his head in agreement.
The oldest tennis player to win a Grand Slam with the US Open men's doubles trophy, Indian veteran Leander Paes said age is just a number for him, something that he just "looks at and smiles".
New Zealand captain Glenn Wilson said the inexperience of his team on grass would be the biggest problem in the Davis Cup tie in Kolkata.
Indian ace Leander Paes and his Czech partner Lukas Dlouhy advanced to the doubles semi-finals while it was curtains for compatriots Mahesh Bhupathi and Rohan Bopanna in the Dubai Tennis Championships on Thursday.
Third seeds Leander Paes and Lukas Dlouhy moved to the quarter-finals of the ATP Rome Masters after getting a walk-over from Croat Ivan Ljubicic and Michael Llodra of France in the second round.
Leander Paes and his Czech partner Radek Stepanek's campaign in the BNP Paribas Open came to an end after they lost 6-3, 7-6(5) to Spain's Rafael Nadal and Marc Lopez at Indian Wells on Wednesday.
Leander Paes and his partner Lukas Dlouhy breezed past Spaniards Nicolas Almagro and Tommy Robredo to storm into the Sony Ericsson Open doubles final in Miami.
Tennis star Leander Paes is set to make his debut on silver screen in a film called Rajdhani Express.
Ace doubles player Leander Paes and his big-serving partner Rohan Bopanna did not practise or play enough together to give themselves a decent chance to win a medal in the men's doubles event at the Rio Olympic Games, said the former's ex-partner Mahesh Bhupathi in Mumbai on Monday. "The (men's) doubles team was definitely under-prepared, in fact there no preparation - that's the right word. "They did not practise, did not play any matches together. Even when Leander and me were not playing on tour in 2004 and 2008 (Olympic Games in Athens and Beijing), we always came together, played a couple of tournaments together. That's what the Olympics demands," said Bhupathi at the Khar Gymkhana in Mumbai.
The third seeded Indo-Czech pair beat Romanian Andrei Pavel and Germany's Alexander Waske in the quarter-finals.
'The belief in each other is what is going to get us the medal'
The seventh seeded Indo-Czech pair lost to third seeds Jonas Bjorkman of Sweden and Todd Woodbridge of Australia in the quarter-finals of the Miami masters.
The duo lost in the quarter-finals of the Pacific Life tennis tournament.
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