NEW DELHI, March 8: After having waited for more than a year and a half, Leander Paes finally won a singles title today. In the final of the $50,000 Bangkok Challenger, he defeated Japan's Goichi Motomura 6-4, 7-5 to pick 70 valuable points and with it a cheque of $7,200.As most of the seeds fell by the wayside, Paes was the highest ranked player left at the semi-final stage. And against Motomura, the Indian star now has a 4-0 head-to-head record. Motomura had earlier beaten Mahesh Bhupathi in the second round of this tournament.This is Paes' first title since November 1996, when he won the Challenger in Mauritius beating Fabrice Santoro in the final. Since then Paes' fortunes have changed dramatically, particularly in the doubles, where he and Mahesh Bhupathi have risen to become one of the world's best pairs and have been ranked as high as No. 3 in the world. But in singles, Paes who broke into the top 100 for a very brief period last year, has been found wanting as he has often been losing in theearly rounds of Challengers.Paes, who was No. 155 last week, could now come close to 125. With some more Challengers coming up followed by the Gold Flake Open in Chennai, Paes has a good chance of picking some more valuable points to break into top 100 once again.
