Latest news with #Paes
The Hindu
08-07-2025
- Sport
- The Hindu
Wimbledon, On This Day: Leander Paes wins the junior title
Leander Paes' record at Wimbledon is one to be envied. The stalwart of Indian tennis has won five titles on the Wimbledon court, four in the mixed doubles and one in the men's doubles. The first Asian man to be inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame, Paes' name is firmly etched into the history books. However, while Paes is well-known for his exploits on the doubles courts, his exploits at the 1990 Wimbledon Junior Championships should not be forgotten. 1990 would prove to be the year that Paes left a mark on junior tennis. He began the year strongly, competing at the junior event of the Australian Open and making his way to the final where he lost to Dirk Dier of West Germany. He arrived at SW19 eager to make go one better, but faced a tough field between him and the title. Paes went into the competition seeded eleventh, and quickly progressed through the competition with clinicality. Between the first round and the semifinal, he dropped just a single set (to Canada's Sebastian Leblanc), knocking out fifth seed Leblanc, and seventh seed Ivan Baron in the semifinal in the process. All of this set up a final against South Africa's Marcos Ondruska, the second seed on July 8 1990. Paes narrowly took the first set 7-5, but Ondruska hit back to claim the second 6-2. The game was delicately poised at a set apiece. However, the young Indian starlet was able to dig deep, and took the final set 6-4 to seal his first title at Wimbledon. In doing so, he became only the third Indian player to win the junior title after Ramanathan Krishnan and Ramesh Krishnan. Reflecting on the match in an interview with Sportstar in 1991, Paes said, 'I had worked hard for it and I was happy with the reward. There is no short cut to success. It was a good final and I won 7-5, 2-6, 6-4. I was confident of winning even before the final.' In winning the title, Paes established himself as one of the brightest young talents in both Indian and world tennis, and started a lifelong love story with the hallowed courts of the SW19.
Yahoo
12-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Fire at Rio de Janeiro Carnival costume factory injures 21
A fire broke out Wednesday at a factory making costumes for Rio de Janeiro's Carnival, injuring 21 people in a blow to the famed extravaganza that attracts millions of tourists to the Brazilian city every year. Workers at the Maximus factory were working around the clock to finish the outfits for samba schools before Carnival parades start in around two weeks -- an often tense time for competitors who spend almost a whole year preparing for the event. The fire department told AFP that 21 people were hospitalized after the blaze. According to Rio de Janeiro Mayor Eduardo Paes, ten of them were in serious condition. Earlier, state health secretary Claudia Mello said at least eight people had been intubated and were on artificial respiration. Fire department chief Colonel Luciano Pacheco Sarmento said that those affected were working in a "precarious manner" and the building contained "a lot of highly combustible material." Some workers had been sleeping in the factory, survivors said. They "were not obliged to sleep" there but "many lived far away" and did so to "avoid wasting time and money going back and forth," Jose Ricardo Braz Santos, a 42-year-old cleaner at the factory, told AFP. "I can still hear the voices of people screaming in my head," he added. A survivor, identified as Roberta, told local media she had been working and sleeping in the building "since Monday." The fire "came from the floor below and we had no way to get down," she said. Rio de Janeiro's labour ministry announced a probe into working conditions at the factory. "We don't know how many places like this exist in the city at the moment," said the mayor Paes. - 'Get back up again' - The cause of the fire has not been established. Fire department spokesman Major Fabio Contreiras told journalists in the early evening that the blaze had been extinguished but there was still a risk the building may collapse. "This building does not have a certificate of approval" from the fire department, said Contreiras. "There are many costumes, a lot of material ... that we managed to preserve," he said. Rio's Carnival, famous for parades with lavish costumes and towering floats to the tune of samba music, begins on February 28 and will run until March 8. Three samba schools were having their outfits made at the affected factory, although none of them were taking part in the main competition for Carnival champion. Like football, the parade competition has several divisions, and samba schools can be relegated or rise through the ranks each year. "It destroyed the costumes. We have to get back up again," said Quiteria Chagas, queen of the drum line for the Imperio Serrano samba school, which was one of those affected, on Instagram. The mayor Paes said the schools impacted by the fire would not be demoted from their Carnival league. - 'An essential space'- One of the associations for the samba schools that compete in the parades, Liga RJ, expressed its "deep concern" for the injured and said it would urgently call a meeting to evaluate the situation. The organization said the Maximus Factory that was hit by the fire was "an essential space for the Rio Carnival." "The impact of this incident directly affects the planning of the Carnival and the entire production chain of its realization," Liga RJ warned in an Instagram message. The samba schools are rooted in Rio's favela urban settlements and each parade tells a story, often dealing with politics, social issues and history. Their parades take place in the Sambadrome, a large, open-air venue where more than 70,000 spectators gather to watch the spectacle with thousands of dancers in shimmering costumes. In 2011, a blaze in the Samba City complex of workshops and warehouses stocking Carnival material wiped out eight months of preparations worth millions of dollars. jss-ffb/fb/st
