Information Madness

Leander Adrian Paes was born on 17^th June 1973 in Goa. He studied at the La Martiniere School in Kolkata and went to St. Xavier’s College there. He enrolled in the Britannia Amritraj Tennis Academy in Chennai in 1985. He was coached by Dave O’Meara.

He rose to fame on an international level when he won the Junior Wimbledon Title and the Junior U.S. Open title in his seventeenth year in 1990 and claimed the top ranking as a junior player in the world.

He features mostly on the ATP Tour and the Davis Cup Tournament. Apart from his twelve Grand Slams wins at the doubles and mixed doubles events, he is also famous for his numerous Davis Cup performances and for winning the bronze medal for India in the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games.

Earlier this year, Leander Paes’ and Mahesh Bhupathi’s reunion has made them the best doubles pair in the world in the month of April. Leander Paes, like Mahesh Bhupathi, has been taking acting lessons for the last year and a half. He is going to make his acting debut in a film called `Rajdhani Express’. He is married to Rhea Pillai, ex-wife of actor Sanjay Dutt. He has a daughter by the name of Aiyana Paes.

Leander Paes has been elected Honourary Life Member of the Chandigarh Lawn Tennis Association. He has received the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award in 1996 and the Padma Shri in 2001. Leander Paes has become only the second player in the world after Rod Laver to win the Wimbledon titles stretching three different decades from 1990 to 2011.