College Tennis News - Former Rebel Netter Wins Eighth Grand Slam Title

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Former Ole Miss men's tennis player Mahesh Bhupathi captured his eighth grand slam title winning two matches Sunday, with Mary Pierce, to claim the Mixed Doubles Championship at Wimbledon.

Playing their second match of the day, the unseeded combination of Bhupathi and Pierce stormed to the Wimbledon Mixed Doubles title with a straight-sets win over Paul Hanley (AUS) and Tatiana Perebiynis (UKR).

The Indian-French duo, playing their first tournament together, downed the similarly unseeded Hanley and Perebiynis, 6-4, 6-2.

Bhupathi and Pierce broke Perebiynis in the third game of the first set. Despite a valiant effort from Hanley to keep his team in the match, Bhupathi and Pierce held to take the set.

The second set went much like the first, with Perebiynis again broken in the third game, this time to love. And again, Hanley held serve to stay in the match. But Pierce and Bhupathi broke Perebiynis again for 5-2. Pierce served out for the championship.

The day started with Bhupathi and Pierce defeating the No. 3 seeded team of Jonas Bjorkman (SWE) and Lisa Raymond (USA) in straight sets. Bhupathi and Pierce actually trailed 4-5 in the first set, but won three straight games. They went on to win the second 6-1.

En route to the title, the Indian-French pair did not drop a set in facing the defending champions, and several top teams in their half of the draw.

One of the top doubles players in the world, Bhupathi has now won three grand slam titles at Wimbledon, also claiming the 1999 Men's Doubles and the 2002 Mixed Doubles. His last grand slam title prior to Sunday came in 2003 when he teamed with Max Miryni to win the U.S. Open Men's Doubles title.

After the match, Bhupathi talked about winning his first grand slam title in two years.

"For me, eight is not so bad, but you guys (media) make me feel like I haven't won a Grand Slam since I haven't won one in two years," Bhupathi said. "Obviously, we had a chance coming into this morning because we've been playing really well. We just played some really high-quality tennis. It would have taken something special for someone to beat us today.

"We came into the tournament unseeded, and we had a very tough draw. We had the defending champions early. All the big teams were in our half. I think one thing we just kept saying to each other before the match was, `let's have some fun.' It showed in our tennis. We didn't really get stressed. We just enjoyed it. Today we were down 5-4 in the first match, but we found a way to break back and get back in it. We had a lot of fun out there. I think that's what actually makes a good mixed doubles team."

Bhupathi also talked about his future plans, as his Wimbledon doubles' partner, Todd Woodbridge is retiring.

"I'm going to play with Martin Damm (CZE) for the rest of the year starting in a couple of weeks," Bhupathi said. "I have always believed that he has kind of underachieved because he hasn't had the right partners. He's a fabulous doubles player. So hopefully we'll give it a shot and get going soon."

While at Ole Miss, Bhupathi led the Rebels to the NCAA team finals. He became the first Rebel tennis player to win an NCAA title when he teamed with Ali Hamadeh to capture the Doubles Championship in 1995 and ended the year as the No. 1 doubles team in the nation. In addition, Bhupathi was an All-American, 1995 SEC Singles Champion and SEC Player of the Year.