When two great doubles players execute a task with such authority, as Leander Paes and Rohan Bopanna did against the inexperienced Koreans, it was only natural to look beyond Davis Cup, and try to look at the Rio Olympics looming round the corner.
“We keep getting asked this question about the Olympics, all the time,” said Paes, quite exasperated about the subject.
Paes was categorical that all it required was for both the players to focus on their game and play well in the professional circuit to be prepared for the Olympics.
Captain Anand Amritraj came to their rescue. He pointed out that it was not just one match against the Koreans, but that Paes and Bopanna had trained together for a few days and had some excellent workouts against Saketh Myneni and Vishnu Vardhan.
“I knew they would raise their level, if they had to,” Anand said, about the quality of game the two demonstrated and the point that Paes had made that they had a few gears to step up, if required.
“We reach Rio two days before the start of tennis in the Games. We will prepare well. We will be ready for the Games,” said Bopanna.
Even as the chemistry was acknowledged to be good, both Paes and Bopanna were amused when queried about the lack of chest-bumps between them.
The 59th ranked Paes took the easy way out by suggesting that he had to be thoughtful about entering into such an exercise against a big man like Bopanna.
On his part, Bopanna was spontaneous in saying that such things just happened, and were not planned.
“If I also jump and he jumps, it will be difficult,” said the 14th ranked Bopanna, as he broke into a smile.
The two players may not be competing in the same tournaments over the next few weeks, forget sharing the same side of the court.
As Paes stressed time and again, it was a matter of being in good shape and keeping a high standard of the game.
