Crossing over

As a sportsman and patriot, Leander Paes has achieved everything there is to achieve. But when Nitin Nair meets a star approaching his tennis sunset, he finds a man who's still got the aces.

"Dude, do you want a Power Bar?"

I'm halfway through my interview with Leander Paes, but I'm still distracted by the thought of those high protein snack bars that he's been munching all day, preferring Power Bars to all the food we've offered him. I understand he's trying to keep his carbs in check during a tournament, but this is beginning to worry me. Why doesn't he want to eat a normal meal?

So I'm really happy for the man when he turns to me and says he feels like a doner kebab whilst we snake our way through traffic on Shaikh Zayed Road. Ten minutes after his kebab craving confession, we are tucking into some heavy-duty chicken shwarmas and grilled prawns at Beirut on Al Dhiyafah Street.

"You see this?" he asks, holding up a chip like a detective would hold up evidence, "This is really bad for your health." And then he laughs and directs it into his mouth and grins again. "But gosh, they taste so good!"

So much for the control freak then. "You can't plan everything, can you?" he says. "Sometimes you should let yourself go with the flow."

"2003 was about starting from scratch."

Leander Paes is the greatest tennis player that India has produced. Most followers of tennis know that, but for those who don't, he is to India what Tim Henman is to England and the Englishman never even won a Grand Slam title.

But since Paes insisted on the eve of the interview that he wants to talk about things outside of tennis, I'm left with the task of summarising his career in one brief paragraph.

Paes was a former World Juniors No. 1, Mahesh Bhupathi and Paes were the world's leading doubles pair in 1999; he has won eight Grand Slams titles, a bronze medal at the Atlanta Olympics and his Davis Cup record (84 wins, 31 losses) puts him in the all-time top 10 in the competition.

That he plays his best when he plays for India is, as the man himself admits, the stuff of folklore. In the Davis Cup, Paes, whose highest ATP ranking has been 73, has been India's David, often conquering players ranked much higher than him. BBC sports columnist Rohit Brijnath put it succinctly when he observed how Paes was able to transcend his averageness when he's playing for India.

This character inspired a generation of his countrymen. I remember interviewing former squash World junior No. 1 Sourav Ghoshal in 2002 just after the Indian teams return from the Busan Asian Games. The 17-year-old cited Leander as one of the reasons why he felt so inspired to play under the Indian flag.

But at 35, Paes knows that his best is past him. He's achieved everything that he's ever wanted to. "When I started, there was this hunger to show the world that India could produce a Grand Slam winner. I've now played through four generations of tennis players. For me, tennis is on cruise control now," he says.

Understandable, for someone who's played at the pinnacle of the sport. "When you win a Grand Slam, the euphoria lasts that one night. Trust me; I've been there many times. What I really enjoy is the path that got me there. Because once you get there, you only have to work on duplicating that process every time," he says.

And yet in 2003, he had thought it was almost over. After suffering a black out during the quarterfinal of the Wimbledon mixed doubles with Martina Navratilova, the then Orlando-based Paes was diagnosed with a lesion in the left occipital region of the brain.

"I thought this was it. Doctors had given me a 30 per cent chance of survival. I thought I wouldn't be able to walk, let alone play again," he recalls. Paes recovered, but his lay-off from tennis gave him enough time to reflect on his life. "For me, 2003 was a start from scratch. I knew I had been given another lease of life and I was determined to make the most of it. I was working on my biography, and I was afraid I wouldn't have enough time to finish it in 2003," he says, before adding. "That book has now been shelved."

"I like to surround myself with people who are at the top of their game"

So what did he learn? "I realised that I could do more with my life than just tennis. I will never tire of the rigours of a professional athlete's life, but as a true Gemini, I believe in creative expression," said Paes.

Over the last few years, his sports management firm Leander Sport has tied up with Maya, a Mumbai-based animation company to create an animation series around sports and fitness. The content will be created and ported for TV, DVD and mobiles. "The company is creating seven different characters and one of them is based on me and will be called 'Lionheart' which is what my name means in Greek. The series is being aimed at children in the 6-12 age-group," says Paes.

His company Leander Sport manages professional athletes like cricketers Sanath Jayasuriya and Muttiah Muralitharan and an F1 driver whose name cannot be divulged now.

Why Leander Sport? "I felt the need for an end-to-end sports management company. But we are not about just managing people. We want to work with the older sportsmen we handle, the elder statesmen, and help them figure out the legacy that they want to leave behind."

He dreams of creating future champions through the development of sports infrastructure. "India has a huge talent pool to pick from. About 60 per cent of our talent is from rural areas today. If we can keep every young athlete within a 15-minute radius of sport, we are not far from creating champions."

Very ambitious. Just how does he intend to go around building infrastructure in a country with a dismal track record for sports infrastructure, a country that has fewer astro-turfs for field hockey than some cities in Holland? "By working with the government," he answers. "It may all seem up in the air now, but I want to work with governmental agencies, help develop infrastructure, create sports science centres for future athletes."

Being a celebrity has opened doors for him in India and Paes has had the business acumen to tap into his stardom. He's designed spas and gyms for real estate businesses in Pune and Bangalore, something that he's particularly vocal about.

"As an athlete competing at the highest level, I have been exposed to some of the world's top sports facilities, so I have been lucky in that sense. I have no qualifications as an architect or designer, but I surround myself with people who are at the top of their game when I'm involved in projects like this."

"I don't want to dwell on the past, but I could've handled certain things better."

It's a little difficult to get past an interview with Paes without the mention of his former doubles partner Bhupathi. Once Indian tennis's dynamic duo, their decision to stop playing together was one that took up a lot of newsprint in the Indian as well as international media. Does he ever think they can get back to playing on the professional circuit again?

"No," the reply's almost instant. "But we still play in the Davis Cup together. But I think that's a part of my life that is best left in the past."

Later, over some grilled prawns, Paes tells me that he knew I was itching to push the topic with Bhupathi but was holding back. That's all I need. Does he feel odd about the way things panned out, about how theories abound about the end of one of the game's most successful partnerships? Neither of them has publicly spoken about the actual cause of the split. "In hindsight, I think we could have handled the whole issue better," he shrugs, his face giving nothing away.

"I've achieved two of my three dreams. One more to go"

As the child of two Olympians (his father Dr Vece Paes was part of the Indian hockey team at the 1972 Munich Olympics and his mother Jennifer was the captain of the Indian basketball team) growing up in Kolkata, he was in awe of the neatly folded blue Indian team jerseys of his parents in cupboards and their citations and awards across the house. "Dinner table conversations centred on sport," recalls Paes.

"I had three dreams as a child – one was to win the Wimbledon, the second was to win an Olympic medal," he says. "I've realised these two dreams."

And the third? It had to be something that opens up a new facet to his personality. "To win an Oscar," he smiles. "I'm not going to tell you anything more, let's save that for another interview."

Essential Leander