They were polite, they walked each other across the court. There was a matey exchange each time they signalled each other to decide upon a set play. And when the break in the second set came, there was the chest thump.

Afterlife to dream run?

But if there was an edginess to be perceived, Paes provided odd confirmation at match’s end. “I have been asked if we refound our magic,” he said. “But we never lost it. The challenge is to produce it every day.” The next round, he said in the course of a remarkably hospitable walkabout to greet everyone in the stands, is the real hurdle. If they clear that, the rest of the road to medal contention is much clearer.

Paes-Bhupathi (or Lee-Hesh as they were called in more cordial times) have been an Olympic medal hope for India for a long time now. In Athens, that chance was dashed in a long bronze medal play-off. In Beijing the medal will not be easy.

But its quest, if it’s sufficiently sustained, could yield for Paes-Bhupathi a necessary afterlife to that dream run of 1999, when they reached all four Grand Slam finals and won two. Doubles is a curious game. Nobody should have a partner forced on him. Libertarians will wonder if it was pressure on them to partner each other that forced yet another messy exchange before the Olympics. But equally, at the Olympics, individual choice is mostly subsumed under team identity. Olympians do not make demands based on whims.

... contd.