There are a great many serious issues I want to write about this week but my time is scarce and I will leave it to the other bloggers to tackle them. Instead, I offer you terrific news out of New York from this past weekend. As most of you probably heard, Indian tennis player Leander Paes and his doubles partner Martin Damm (a Czech) won the U.S. Open Tournament.
Leander Paes won his first Men’s doubles title at a grand slam in five years by wresting the US Open crown with Martin Damm of the Czech Republic here on Saturday.
Paes and Damm scored a shock 6-7 (5-7), 6-4, 6-3 victory over second seeds Jonas Bjorkman of Sweden and Max Mirnyi of Belarus in the final at the Flushing Meadows. Paes, 33, last registered a grand slam triumph in 2001 at the French Open with Mahesh Bhupathi, with whom he also won the French Open and the Wimbledon in 1999.
This is also Damm’s first ever major title. Paes has also won three mixed doubles titles in grand slams. Paes and Damm pocketed $400,000 as winner’s prize money. The lengthy opening set was a power struggle that stayed on serve to force a tiebreak. [Link]
Paes’ previous Grand Slam victory came at Wimbledon in 2003 where he won the mixed doubles championship partnering with tennis goddess Martina Navratilova. As you can see from the pictures below, when you got love for your teammate(s) you are nearly impossible to beat. Congrats to Paes and Damm!