Mahesh Bhupati and Leander Paes have never surprisingly won an Olympic medal together. But they came mighty close in 2004 at Athens.
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That Mahesh Bhupati and Leander Paes are legends of doubles tennis is something that goes without saying. The Indian duo dominated the doubles tour as a unit at one point. However, the fact that they never won an Olympic medal together still seems hard to digest. Paes did win a bronze medal, but that came in the men’s singles draw at the 1996 Olympics. He came close to winning a doubles medal on two occasions – first with Ramesh Krishnan in 1992 and then with Bhupati in 2004. Indeed, it is the latter that is seen as the biggest ‘what if’ in India’s Olympic history.
As the Tokyo Olympics draw closer, let us look back at the time Lee-Hesh came so near but were so far at the end.
It is impossible to think about Mahesh Bhupati and Leander Paes without remembering their rocky equation over the years. The two were dynamite both on and off the court.
In 1999, the two reached the finals of all four Grand Slams in the men’s doubles draw, winning the French Open and Wimbledon. They also won at Roland Garros in 2001.
However, a lack of decent results thereafter led to the splintering of the pair. Yet come 2004, they decided to give their partnership another shot. The hope, of course, was that they would be able to lead India to a medal.
At the time, the pair’s success as a duo was recent enough that hopes were running high on the two. This is despite the fact that at Sydney, when paired together at their world beating best, they got knocked out in the second round.
Still, the two seemed like India’s best bet at the Games and so pairing them up made a degree of sense. After all, chemistry was something the two still had in spades.
There were going to be questions over how well the duo fared in the tournament. Indeed, when the first set of their first round match against Americans Andy Roddick and Mardy Fish went into a tie-break, a few doubtless felt anxious.
However, the duo won the tie-break before taking the second set 6-3 in a commanding manner. Their first hurdle was thus cleared.
In the second match they took on the Swiss duo of Yves Allegro and a certain Roger Federer. Federer was, at the time, ascending to the top of the tennis world as a singles competitor. However, he also played doubles alongside his friend Allegro.
That camaraderie was off little use against Lee-Hesh though. The Indian duo easily finished took the first set 6-2 before the second set went into a tie-break. They then took the tie-break 9-7 to book their place in the quarterfinals.
In the last eight, they faced the Zimbabwean duo of Wayne Black and Kevin Ullyett. Again, the match was of little difficulty to the seasoned duo who went on to win 6-4, 6-4.
In the semi-final they faced the unseeded German duo of Nicolas Kiefer and Rainer Schuttler. The Indians were favourites heading into the game but, in a shock, lost in straight sets to the eventual runners-up.
The prospect of a guaranteed medal was now gone, although the two knew a win in the third-place play-off would seal a medal. They faced Croatia’s Mario Ancic and Ivan Ljubicic in the match.
Any hopes that the match would be a walkover were quashed in the first set itself. It finished 6-6 and went to a tie-breaker, which the Croats surprisingly won 7-5.
Bhupati and Paes now had their backs against the wall. They had lost the semis in straight sets and knew they needed to a win set to keep this match alive.
They managed to do just that, sealing the second set 6-4. Into a deciding set went the match.
Knowing the stakes were high, all four players upped their service games and no one dropped a serve. Of course, this meant the match went on and on since there was no tie-breaker for the final set.
Eventually it was the Indians who lost out, as Paes’ serve was broken when the Croatians were already leading 15-14. After a near four-hour match, Indian hopes lay dashed.
This was the last time the duo came so close to winning a medal.
