Paes qualifies for Wimbledon

Shailesh Soni

Indian ace Leander Paes qualified for the main draw at Wimbledon on Wednesday. In the final of the singles qualifying tournament, he defeated Alex O'Brien of the United States 6-7(5), 6-3, 6-2, 6-2.

Paes will be playing in the main draw for the fifth time though he has never gone past the first round.

The match started with both players holding serve for the first four games. Paes had a double break-point opportunity in the fifth game, but was unable to convert.

In the tie-breaker, it was O'Brien who served first and Paes soon found himself down 0-2. The Indian, however, did well to hang on though he faced two set points on his serve at 3-6. But it was O'Brien's strong serve which prevailed in the end as he took the set at 7-6(7-5) on the fourth set point.

In the second set, O'Brien continued to trouble the Indian No.1, taking him to a couple of deuces in the first game, but Paes stayed focused to hold serve. From that point on, he lifted his game and had the American in trouble at 30-40 in the second game. He easily converted the break-point to go up 2-0. Thereafter, games went with serve before Paes won the set quite comfortably at 6-3.

In the third set, Paes broke the American in the first game only to see his opponent return the break in the next game. Paes again broke the American in the next game to go up 2-1. The American was broken again in the fifth game before Paes closed out the set at 6-2.

In the fourth set, the Indian got his first break-point in third game, which he converted and went up 3-1 on serve. Paes did convert the second one to go up 5-2. The Indian then served for the match. He held serve to make it to the main draw of Wimbledon for the fifth time.

The match took two hours and 45 minutes.

Paes will face Daniel Elsner of Germany in the first round. Elsner, 22, ranked 148 on the ATP, is primarily a claycourt player. He was among the last players to make a direct entry into the singles draw when it closed with the rankings five weeks back. The year has not been good for the German, who lost in the first round of most of the ATP events.

Paes is placed in the lower half of the upper side of the bottom-most quarter of the draw. His potential opponents are, 24th seed Nicolas Escude of France in the second round, 9th seed Sebastien Grosjean of France in the 3rd round, fifth seed Lleyton Hewitt of Australia in the 4th round and second seed Agassi in the quarter-final.

Earlier reports:
Paes in qualifying final
Paes, Nirupama in round 2
Paes faces Bulgarian in Wimbledon qualifier