Indian Tennis legend Leander Paes was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame as the first Asian man in the Players’ category a week ago. However, the journey of Paes has been far from smooth. The Tennis ace had to deal with injuries and brain tumour in his long career to emerge as one of the greatest Doubles Tennis player in the world.
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In a career spanning 30 years, Paes has been the world number one in Doubles and has won 18 Grand Slams. With 8 Doubles titles and 10 mixed doubles titles, Paes is one of just three men in the history of Tennis to have a career Grand Slam in both Doubles and Mixed Doubles.
Paes shares the record for most mixed doubles major titles in the Open Era with his former partner Martina Navratilova. Paes and Martina Hingis, also a Hall of Famer, are the only two players in Open Era history to have completed a career Grand Slam.
To give you an idea of how long Paes lasted at the peak of his career, he spent 462 weeks in the top 10 of the ATP doubles rankings, 37 of those in the top spot.
Tough journey of Leander Paes
In 2003, Paes was admitted to the MD Anderson Cancer Center for a suspected brain tumour that was later found to be neurocysticercosis, a parasitic brain infection.
The Tennis ace in a recent interview opened up about that phase when he was battling with this hardship.
“I like to say that I’ve had amazing hardships. I have been in a cancer hospital for seven months with a tumour in my brain. Then there was a time when doctors didn’t think I could ever be a professional athlete because of a mitral valve prolapse (heart). I also wore a metal cast for 10 months due to torn ligaments in my right knee caused by too much football as a 10-year-old. It’s only now that I’m not playing the sport and can sit back and think of the struggles I’ve overcome and be thankful for them,” Paes told Indian Express.
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