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Paes gets wild card for Olympics

Shailesh Soni

As expected, Indian tennis ace Leander Paes has been offered a wild card for the forthcoming Sydney Olympic Games.

Paes was nominated for one of the six wild cards issued by the International Tennis Federation.

The ITF issued Asian players two wild cards in the men's singles, four in the women's singles as well as one in the men's doubles and three in the women's doubles.

For Paes, who from doubles won India's first individual medal in 44 years at Atlanta in 1996, it will be his third Olympic Games. He had lost in the doubles quarter-finals in 1992.

He has had a tough season in 2000 because of injury which forced him to skip Wimbledon and also India's Davis Cup tie against Sweden last month.

He and Mahesh Bhupathi, ranked number one in the world in 1999, have already been given a direct entry in the doubles. But they are unlikely to be seeded at the Games as the rankings after the US Open will be taken into account to decide the seedings. The bulk of points from the last year's finals will fall off for the Indians.

Meanwhile, the pair will start playing together again at the Waldbaum's Hamlet Cup at Long Island, starting from August 21. Then, at the US Open the following week Mahesh will be playing doubles with Knowles as committed earlier. Paes hasn't decided about those two weeks. They will be back again together for the President's Cup at Tashkent just a week before the Olympics, after which they will play in the Heineken Open, Hong Kong Open, Japan Open and Heineken Open.