Nineteen years after his Davis Cup debut, 13 years after his Olympic medal, and 10 years after his first Grand Slam doubles title, Leander Paes is still going strong. The French Open doubles title is testimony to his fitness, strong will, and to an incredibly effective partnership he’s forged with Czech Lukas Dlouhy, writes Shreya Chakravertty

The images, winding and weaving in a kaleidoscope over nearly two decades, are many. Some of the pictures fit perfectly, weaving effortlessly into each other — the 1990 junior Wimbledon title, the 1996 bronze medal in Atlanta, the 2006 Asian Games doubles gold, the nine Grand Slam titles. Some others have a few jagged edges — the brain lesion which needed surgery, the issues with Mahesh Bhupathi which never seem to disappear, the antagonism between the members of the Davis Cup team. Leander Paes’s résumé is painted in shades of black, white and grey.

His latest success came on the red clay of Roland Garros, a third Slam in Paris giving him his fifth men’s doubles title at a major. It was also the first with new partner Lukas Dlouhy of Czech Republic, who had joined Paes at the French Open one year ago, at a time when the Indian couldn’t possibly have foreseen another Slam in his future.

Paes’s partnership with Paul Hanley had endured a string of early defeats in the first half of 2008. He played off and on with a few other players, even singles specialists in a desperate attempt to find a winning combination, and when Hanley was faced with charges of date rape back in Australia, the union came to an abrupt but predictable end.

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