Leander Paes wrote another chapter in the annals of Indian tennis folklore by joining co-legend Mahesh Bhupathi at the top of the charts of Grand Slam glory by winning his 11th Doubles title at the 2010 Australian Open playing alongside Zimbabwean Cara Black. The pair of Paes and Black, top seeds at the Open, were far too good for the scratch team of Jaroslav Levinsky and Ekaterina Makarova, playing in their first ever Grand Slam final.

After winning a tight first set 7-5 the 2008 US Open champions cruised through the second 6-3 to end their long awaited wait for a second career slam together. Having lost back-to-back finals in 2009 at Wimbledon and the US Open, the pair of Paes and Black eventually proved third time lucky.

It was the battle of the Indian tennis legends as Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi squared-off in the final of the US Open Men's Doubles. Paes, who won the French Open doubles title with partner Lukas Dlouhy earlier this year, put one over his former teammate as he and Dlouhy mounted a spirited comeback to record an entertaining win at Flushing Meadows, New York.

With Bhupathi and his partner Mark Knowles from the Bahamas, up a set and a break, the match looked to be slipping out of the hands of Dlouhy and Paes, but they played some memorable defensive tennis to win 6 of the next 7 games to level the match at a set apiece, before running away with the third set to record a 3-6, 6-3, 6-2 win.

The early exchanges in the first set defin

If this were a boxing match it would never have been allowed. On the basis of professional achievement, Leander Paes & Cara Black would be the equivalent of a Joe Frazier and their opponents Carly Gullickson & Travis Parrott the novice flyweight. 101 tour doubles titles, 17 Slams & 29 finals in the Slams buttressed a 2nd seeding in the doubles while their opponents were wildcards nowhere in the vicinity of the pedigree of their opponents and nearly not even playing in the mixed doubles. Oh! Did I mention? The Indo - Zim pair were also the defending champions. But if ever a match wasn't played on paper, this was it. Th