Print Email to Friend| From Tehelka Magazine, Vol 9, Issue 27 , Dated 07 July 2012

OPINION

R.I.P. Chest Bumps

By Vishwanathan Krishnaswamy

Before sunset Bhupathi and Paes after a win at the Davis Cup World Group first round doubles tennis match in Moscow Photo: Reuters

THEY SAY doubles players need to be good communicators. Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi didn’t need that skill. They could sense each other, anticipate each other, cover up for each other on the court. They knew how to win and didn’t need to talk to each other for that. They perhaps didn’t. But clouded by their victories, it didn’t occur to us because we were too occupied counting their trophies.

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Their chest bumps revived doubles tennis, which was on the verge of being put to rest with the top singles players giving the event the short shrift.

When you have 26 doubles titles, including three Grand Slams, together and another 24 with others, besides a stunning Davis Cup record, you would expect the pairing to be closer than brothers. Twenty-two of those 26 titles came between April 1997 and April 2002 and even in that period in 2000, they barely played with each for the first 10 months. They won their 23rd title together before the 2004 Athens Olympics and then split again.

Seven years later, they came together to win three more titles. It seemed that the friends-turned-foes would once again take the court together at the 2012 Olympics in Wimbledon, the site of their first big win back in 1999. Alas, this time it was only a dream. Now, as things stand, they will never play together again. Not even at the Olympics.

Their ‘on-off’ mode was finally switched off last week and the messages came through ‘official’ and ‘unofficial spokesmen. Words like ‘liar’ and ‘backstabber’ were bandied about. There was an absence of ‘trust’, which is the cornerstone of any collaborative effort.

Insiders say the first hint of trouble came as early as June 1999 and in the middle of what was to be their best year ever. They had lost in the Australian Open final, their first-ever Grand Slam final together. In May, they won the French Open title. But in between French and Wimbledon tournaments, Paes partnered Dutchman Jan Siemerink and won the title at ’s-Hertogenbosch in The Netherlands. Paes and Bhupathi came back within days and won the Wimbledon title and reached the US Open final, too.

There were rumours that a certain ‘lady’ had become close to both Paes and Bhupathi. Neither confirmed nor denied it. That became the bone of contention and it carried on, even when they came together again in 2000-01, a period in which they added seven more titles together. But things were never the same.

They had other rivalries, too. For instance, in business — Paes En-Sport for Paes and Globosport for Bhupathi. Both organised tournaments and managed players. Only Bhupathi was better at it. He organised bigger events and managed virtually everyone else — except Paes.

When the pair came together at the beginning of 2011, they won the Chennai Open for a record sixth time. They added two more in Miami and Cincinnati and even reached the semi-finals of ATP Tour World Doubles. But by the time Christmas came, the glue holding up the relationship had come unstuck.

But this time, there was a third factor, Rohan Bopanna, who, it seems, first discussed playing with Paes for the 2012 Olympics. But he then opted to play with Bhupathi.

Come 2012 and time for entries, the war was out in the open. Paes had a direct entry as a Top 10 player, but Bhupathi and Bopanna together were also eligible for a spot at the Olympics. With Bhupathi and Bopanna refusing to partner Paes, the latter was left to play, if he so chose, with a lower-ranked player, Vishnu Vardhan.

It might have seemed that men’s doubles was the bone of contention, but behind all this drama was the fight to play with Sania Mirza in mixed doubles. With all top players electing to play men’s doubles, a medal for Paes-Bhupathi or Bhupathi-Bopanna is only a long shot, if not far-fetched.

The real medal chance is in mixed doubles that has only 16 pairs, as opposed to 32 in men’s doubles, and not all top singles players play mixed doubles. Two wins and you can smell the medal.

Players cannot hold a sport to ransom or pick and choose teams. But then the tennis association should never have allowed the situation to reach this stage. Medals or not, Indian tennis, never ever bereft of drama (remember the Amritrajs versus Khannas controversies or how Ramanathan Krishnan left his captaincy or the Davis Cup payment problems in the 1990s), has hit an all-time low.

They once called Paes-Bhupathi the Indian Express. It then became the Indian roller coaster. Now it has come to a standstill.

Vishwanathan Krishnaswamy is a senior sports journalist.
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