Our tennis rockstar

One can count on Leander Paes, the Padma Bhushan tennis superstar, to charm the pants, tees, shorts and caps off anyone in his orbit.

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He did just that during his terrific acceptance speech, when he (along with another tennis legend, Vijay Amritraj) was inducted into the prestigious International Tennis Hall of Fame at Newport, Rhode Island. They are the first Asian men to be thus honoured. Deservedly so. Leander, at 51, is a diehard Kolkata boy, born to remarkable parents, who, he candidly shared in that amazing speech, conceived the wunderkind in Munich, where they found themselves locked inside the India Pavilion at the ill-fated Olympics, when Palestinian terrorists murdered 11 Israeli athletes. Leander's father, Dr Vece Paes, was a member of India's hockey contingent. His mother, Jennifer, a top-notch basketball player, was with her husband.