Leander Paes, who received 18 Grand Slam titles in males’s doubles or blended doubles, and ex-player, broadcaster and promoter Vijay Amritraj are the primary Asian males elected to the Worldwide Tennis Corridor of Fame.
The Corridor, which is predicated in Newport, Rhode Island, and has been round since 1955, introduced its Class of 2024 on Wednesday. Additionally being inducted subsequent yr: Richard Evans, a British journalist and historian, who was chosen within the Contributor Class.
Amritraj, additionally chosen within the Contributor Class, and Paes, who enters within the Participant Class, are India’s first members of the shrine. It’s the twenty eighth nation to be represented.
Li Na, a Chinese language lady who received two Grand Slam singles titles, turned the primary Asian member of the Worldwide Tennis Corridor of Fame when she was inducted in 2019.
Subsequent yr’s induction ceremony will probably be held in Newport on July 20.
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The collection of Paes ends a two-year drought through which nobody nominated within the Participant Class was picked. The Class of 2022 marked the primary time within the historical past nobody on the poll was chosen, and it occurred once more for the Class of 2023.
Candidates must be chosen on 75% of ballots; voters embody media, historians, Corridor of Fame members, trade specialists and followers.
“It has been my life’s honor to play for my nation for over three a long time in a sport that has given and taught me all the pieces. … Induction into the Worldwide Tennis Corridor of Fame belongs not simply to me, however to our billion-plus Indians,” Paes mentioned. “Receiving this honor culminates an expert journey of a lifetime, standing on the shoulders of greats and units the tone for different children in Asia and around the globe.”
He received eight main championships in doubles and 10 in blended and is one in all three males in tennis historical past with a profession Grand Slam in each. He and one in all his former doubles companions, Martina Navratilova, share the document for many blended doubles trophies in Grand Slam competitors.
Paes collected a complete of 55 doubles titles on the lads’s tour and was No. 1 within the ATP doubles rankings for 37 weeks.
His 45 Davis Cup doubles match victories for India are a document, and he participated in seven Summer season Olympics — essentially the most for a tennis participant — profitable a bronze medal in singles on the 1996 Atlanta Video games.
Amritraj was an expert participant within the Seventies and Eighties who helped India attain the Davis Cup Finals in 1974 and 1987. In 1974, the crew boycotted the final spherical in opposition to South Africa to protest apartheid. After his enjoying profession, Amritraj turned a tennis broadcaster and administrator, together with selling humanitarian causes.
Evans has reported on tennis since 1960, protecting greater than 200 Grand Slam tournaments and different occasions, and authored greater than 20 books. He was one of many founding members of the Worldwide Tennis Writers’ Affiliation and was its president from 2001-04.