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Leander Paes rolls back the years

Inspite of the success in the doubles format of the game, Leander Paes always takes time to wonder what would have happened had he paid more attention to his singles games.

At one time, Leander was ranked 73 and had won an ATP title, besides Bronze in the Atlanta Olympic Games in singles when he decided to focus solely on doubles, a move which paid rich dividends, yielding eight Grand Slam titles so far.

“Sure, one wonders every now and then as to what would have happened if I played singles and continued. At 73 in the world, I concentrated on my singles. In a way I would have loved to see how far I would have gone with my singles,” Paes said.

“I would not take anything away from those years, even though in 1998 I gave up singles for doubles. I would not sit back and say ‘oh! I would not have wanted to win those Grand Slam events’.”

He also said that he treasures all the success he has achieved in company of Bhupathi.

“As far as I am concerned, I respect whatever we have achieved together. I respect the fact that we had excellent run together. I respect that you have something special we created already like 1998 or 1999-00. That was for those years, you don’t tamper with them. I would not away anything away from those years,” he added.

Tags: ATP, leander paes, mahesh bhupathi, US Open 2008