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Paes, Bhupathi find themselves in the money

Despite the upset at the hands of the Lareau-O'Brien combination in the final of the World Doubles tournament at Hartford the other day, the Indian pair of Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi end the year as easily the most successful pairing in the game. Especially if you use money as the yardstick -- the Paes-Bhupathi combo, which won two Grand Slam titles this year, is the only pairing to win over a million dollars in prize money.

The Indian pair made it to six finals -- the Gold Flake Open in Chennai, the four Grand Slams, and the World Doubles at Hartford, and came away with a 3-3 record. Bjorkman-Rafter and Lareau/O'Brien are the only two teams who have beaten the Indians in finals, the latter pairing doing it twice. The Indians also had a semifinal placing at Indian Wells.

Rank	Team	Year end	Round Robin			SF & Final		Total		Year end
		Bonus $$	W-L	$$	Points	$$	Points	$$	Points	Points	$$
1	Paes/Bhupathi	100,000	2-1	40	180	50	190	190	370	4019	1159686
2	Lareau/O'Brien	80,000	2-1	40	180	130	460	250	640	3007	924104
3	W'bridge/W'forde	70,000	3-0	60	270	0	0	130	270	2837	671632
4	E.Ferreira/Leach	60,000	1-2	20	90	0	0	80	90	2439	629572
5	W.Black/Stolle	45,000	2-1	40	180	0	0	85	180	2275	602538
6	Adams/DeJager	40,000	0-2	0	0	0	0	40	0	2249	533806
7	Bjorkman/Rafter	0	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	2097	504818
8	Haarhuis/Palmer	35,000	1-2	20	90	0	0	55	90	2072	490976
9	Norval/Ullyett	30	1-2	20	90	-	-	50	90	1833	442840
10	Novak/Rikl (Alt.)	14,000	0-1	0	0	0	0	14	0	1636	410000
		$474,000	$240,000			$180,000		$894,000		Points

Paes earned prize money to the tune of $705,035 this year, as opposed to the $610,000 he had earned last year, and is now at number 22 in the ATP list of big-time earners. Each have earned an additional $75,0000 from mixed doubles with those Grand Slam titles, which is not included in ATP earnings. Leander's career earnings are now $2.26 million, while Bhupathi has thus far earned $1.61M.

Overall, it was a rather strange year for the Indians -- they won less tournaments compared to last year, but ended the year with their number one ranking intact thanks to a great Grand Slam performance, making the finals four times and winning two.

However, the Indians are on record as saying that they want to go down in history as one of the most successful pairs of all time -- and to achieve this, they need to get back to the job of winning more titles. This year, they focussed on getting rid of a huge hoodoo, which had it that they couldn't go beyond the semis at the Slams. And they broke the jinx in style, progressing beyond the last four stage four times out of four.

Five more titles, and they enter the all-time list at number ten, with 20 titles to their name. The way they are going, the next two years should bring them 15, 20 more titles -- which is by no means an unreasonable goal -- and that should lift them close to the all time top mark.

Meanwhile, the tennis season ends -- and the Indians can take pride from the fact that they accomplished the objective they had set themselves at the start of the season, which is, to end the year as number one, and to establish themselves as the torchbearers on the doubles circuit.