Then, one fateful evening Vece and his wife met Chirandip Mukerjea, brother of the legendary Jaidip Mukerjea, and discussed this problem they were facing. Mukerjea was the angel who walked into their lives, handed Leander his first racquet and the rest is history. A chance meeting with the Amritrajs who were conducting a camp in Calcutta , and Lee moved from Calcutta to Madras (now Chennai) for the next five years at the Britannia Amritraj Tennis Academy.
Shahid Sen, vice-president, Repucom, who met Lee in Class VI at the Madras Christian College, is one of his closest buddies. He recounted what happened in those years in school. “Lee was the ideal kid. Almost every two weeks, he would be paraded on stage by the principal Clement Felix each time Lee would win a tournament. Leander also played in the school cricket and football teams, not just tennis”. To make things even more frustrating for Shahid, Lee would come back from a tennis tour to Bombay, Delhi or Calcutta, miss classes, get taught by Shahid and then get better marks. “Grrrrrr…… that really zapped me, how could he learn from me, play half the month and score higher in the exams too?” said Shahid.
And 1990 was a watershed year when the boy became a man.
Lee was chosen as the fifth player for the Davis Cup team, with little chance to play. He was drafted at the last minute into the playing four by captain Naresh Kumar, and along with Zeeshan Ali, created history by defeating the highly-fancied Japanese pair in a gruelling five-setter. “This is one match I will never ever forget. It made me realise that giving up was not a part of my vocabulary,” said Lee once when we sat and sipped fresh lime water (sweet). Today, Leander is the second most successful player in the history of the Davis Cup. What an amazing feat for a man who on many occasions gave up the opportunity of playing lucrative tournaments and earning mega-dollars, to play his best for the country …..Always draping himself in the tri-colour after every Davis Cup win.
The pairing with Mahesh Bhupathi was far before they actually played together on court. As juniors on the circuit, they were friends and travel-mates. In 1997, Lee saw Mahesh’s doubles prowess and insisted with the Indian Davis Cup management to team them up. A team that blazed new frontiers and rocketed to the world No 1 ranking.
In 1999, they reached each and every Grand Slam doubles final — winning two, losing two. Just before they embarked on this incredulous journey, we met when they were brand ambassadors for J Hampstead, and the TV commercial showed them being coached in cricket by Geoff Boycott. “It’s true, we may win Grand Slam after Grand Slam , but it’s the cricketers who hog the limelight and the sports pages,” lamented both Mahesh and Lee. Strange, how things have changed when this year on almost every front page it showed Lee’s Australian Open doubles title win juxtaposed with the photograph of a drooping cricket star trudging of Australian cricket grounds. Down Under for the Indian cricket team, but ‘Up and Above’ for champion Leander.
The last few weeks have been full of the “age-factor” in sport — on how our legendary cricketers should call it quits. After all, 38 is way beyond perfect ‘eye-hand control’, and ‘sprinting singles’. Is that right Lee?
It was strange to see the articles compare Lee with Sachin. Both born in 1973. Both awarded the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Award, the Arjuna Award, both baptised by fire….one playing his first Test in Pakistan and the other a tantalising Davis Cup encounter versus Japan. Both dedicated, dominant, successful yet humble. Strange how often Sachin wants to play tennis with Lee and Leander wants to bat with Sachin.
By fate or chance Lee bumped into the legendary Martina Navratilova, who was keen to come back and play in some Grand Slam tournaments. In all innocence Lee asked Navratilova, “Aren’t you too old to play now?” What he heard changed his life. She said “Leander, age is just a number”
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