Date:24/05/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/05/24/stories/2008052455581800.htm

Sport - Tennis

Paes to open academy

Kolkata: A legends tennis tournament will be replacing the WTA tour Sunfeast Open which has been shifted to Mumbai this year. The Indian captain Leander Paes announced this here on Friday.

“I think it is high time I had given something back to tennis. It is better to start with the city where I got my first tennis lessons,” said Paes. “I will try to use my good offices in the international circuit and bring in former stars like Pat Cash, Michael Stich, Aranxta Sanchez, Martina Navratilova, Mats Wilander among others, in a tournament of the legends,” he added.

The tournament will be held in the last week of November and the list of the players participating will be clear after Wimbledon, Paes said.

The tennis ace also said that he would be opening an academy in conjunction with the Bengal Tennis Association and the Government of West Bengal.

“I had a long discussion with the Sports Minister, Mr. Subhas Chakraborty. He has assured me that the government would be providing adequate land required to build a state-of-the-art academy,” Paes said. The academy will be called Leander Paes Centre of Excellence. — Principal Correspondent