Indian doubles legend Leander Paes, who has been struggling of late, has teamed up with his former partner Lukas Dlouhy for this week’s Memphis Open. Paes had a successful partnership with the Czech that culminated in the French Open and the US Open titles in 2009.
Dlouhy, who reached a career-high ranking of 5 in 2009, had taken a hiatus for most of the 2015 season and returned to the Tour only last November. After playing a few Challengers in 2015 end, he is back in the main ATP Tour this year and reached the quarter-finals of the Sofia Open last week alongside Sergiy Stakhovsky.
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His ranking has thus plummeted to 415 but with Paes in tow, he will try to recreate their magic of 2009. The currently 51st ranked Leander, who has won just one match this season, had been desperately looking for a partner with whom his game complements and Dlouhy may just be the right answer. The Indo-Czech combine start against the French-Austrian duo of Fabrice Martin and Oliver Marach at Memphis.
Rohan Bopanna to team up with Romanian teammate Florin Mergea
Among the other Indians playing this week, Rohan Bopanna and his Romanian teammate Florin Mergea are vying for the title at the ABN Amro World Tennis Tournament in Rotterdam. The fourth seeds edged past the unseeded Polish pair of Lukasz Kubot and Marcin Matkowski 6-7, 6-3, 10-7 in the first round.
In WTA, the indomitable pair of Sania Mirza and Martina Hingis will be looking to extend their winning run as they aim for their fourth title of the year at the St Petersburg Ladies Trophy. The Australian Open champions will kickstart their campaign against the Russian-Latvian team of Evgeniya Rodina and Jelena Ostapenko.
