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If you don't train together, you don't reign together!
Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi learnt this bitter lesson at the Olympic Green Tennis Centre here yesterday as they went down 2-6, 4-6 to the Swiss combination of Roger Federer and Stanislas Wawrinka in a quarter-final tie carried over from the previous night. When rain stopped play on Thursday, the Swiss pair led 4-1 in the first set.
Though the Indians may have had a better track record having been former World No 1s, the fact that they had only got together a few days before the Olympics 'for the sake of the country' showed in their tame display, where they were often caught off-guard and even more embarrassingly, together on one side of their court.
Not only did the Swiss duo put up a more co-ordinated and sharper effort, but given that Federer was playing like a man possessed, gave the Indians absolutely no chance of a fight back.
According to a member of the travelling Swiss media contingent, with whom Federer had a press conference in their native language at 1:30 am the previous night, the World No 1 was grumpy about quite a few things.
"Firstly, he had lost to USA's James Blake in straight sets in the quarter-final last evening. And soon after, his scheduled 9 pm doubles match was delayed by rain for over four hours with the International Tennis Federation insisting that all matches had to be finished off on the night.
"And as though that was not enough, after taking a strong 4-1 lead against the Indians, the rains came down again to defer the tie to the next day. Naturally, he was pissed off," Marcel Allemannn of Switzerland's Blick newspaper told MiD DAY.
Federer, who is struggling to overcome a year-long slump and came to Beijing knowing he will have to surrender the No 1 position to Spain's Rafael Nadal after having been on the top for nearly half a decade, is desperate to add an Olympic medal to his glittering trophy cabinet that includes 12 Grand Slam titles. His best finish in the Games is a semi-final showing at Sydney 2000.
Yesterday, he was so keen to win that he readily covered his partner, who is making his Olympic debut here. Poor Lee-Hesh, who already had enough problems of their own had to now encounter some Federer fury to which they had no reply. "He played exceptionally well, unbelievable stuff," Paes said at the post-match press conference.
"We thought we would exploit the relative inexperience of Wawrinka, but Federer came in the way of most of the shots being played to him to and returned world-class winners.
"Converting half-volleys into passing shots is something only a World No 1 can do," added the five-time Olympian, who on Thursday told MiD DAY that he was living his dream.
Alas, he had to wake up to reality!
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