Newport, Veteran Leander Paes reached the semi-finals of the ATP Hall of Fame Open with partner Marcus Daniell, after they beat Matthew Ebden and Robert Lindstedt. Paes, 46, and Kiwi Daniell won 6-4, 5-7, 14-12 over the Australian-Swede pair in the quarter-finals after saving three match points.
Paes is now the oldest ATP Tour semi-finalist since John McEnroe (47) at 2006 San Jose.
“The experience is still there, the legs are still there, the knowledge and strokes are there. It’s about finding the right doubles partners and I’ll have success. Being a student of life and the game, I used to try to learn from the older players. Now, I try to learn from the younger ones,” Paes told ATP website.
“I have to work three times as hard now as I did 10 or 15 years ago. That’s just age, but I love the work. When I was younger, I’d waste a lot of energy practising for five or six hours a day.
“My training is very specific now, focusing on improving specific areas of my game, focusing on my diet and recovery. The knowledge we have nowadays in tennis on fitness, health and recovery is why the margins of winning and losing are so slim.”
Paes, who has won 18 Grand Slam titles, is now sixth on the all-time doubles match winners’ list.
Paes and Daniell will next take on Marcel Granollers and Sergiy Stakhovsky.