Paes opts out of Asian games

New Delhi, Dec 4: Leander Paes in crutches, hobbling around in his home in Orlando (Florida), has kissed his gold medal chances at Bangko...

New Delhi, Dec 4: Leander Paes in crutches, hobbling around in his home in Orlando (Florida), has kissed his gold medal chances at Bangkok goodbye. But that was expected anyway though medical reports gave some signs of hope in the intervening period.

“The hip will heal in a couple of days time but what is worrying is the left heel,” Paes told The Indian Express from Orlando. The hip injury, he said, is the direct fall-out of the bone spur on his heel. The doctors attending to him are putting him

through exercises which includes long stints in the swimming pool. They have advised him against putting any pressure on his heel, confining him more or less confined to his home.

He agreed that the injury was a direct consequence of “too much tennis”. “I was playing well, so I played a lot more tournaments. The kind of surfaces I had played on may have also contributed to this state of affairs. From now on, I will have to play with different type of shoes, insoles to ensure that the injury does notcrop again. Tennis has become a profession where there is no off season.”

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Paes expects the heel to be ready by the middle of this month after which he should be able to walk without pain. The return to the tennis court begins only after that. He is looking at Australian Open as a realistic deadline for getting back to action.

The list of competitors features neither Paes nor his doubles partner Mahesh Bhupathi in the men’s team event, which gives only Prahlad Srinath and Vijay Kannan, the number three and number five in the Indian men’s team, a chance to fight it out.

There is no Indian entry listed in the men’s singles, doubles and women’s singles but all the six women players are mentioned in the team competition.