NEW YORK -- When Leander Paes walked over to the cramped interview station by the front door of the Bud Collins Media Center at Flushing Meadows, you would be hard pressed to know he just had a tough loss in his opening match.Paes, with eight doubles and 10 mixed doubles major titles to his name, suffered a tough 2-6, 7-5, 4-6 defeat with new partner Andre Begemann to Dudi Sela and Stephane Robert on Friday.But he greeted the small gathering of reporters awaiting him, with a beaming smile and firm handshakes.What else do I have to prove? he says, smiling again. Ive won 18 grand slams. Its all fun now.Paes said he and Begemann, the 32-year-old German, are still finding their feet together.It was a tough loss, Paes added. Im adjusting to a new partner. It takes a little getting used to. But weve had a great run so far, won Biella [Challenger], made the final in Winston-Salem, and had all sorts of chances to win today. Its just a tough learning curve.It is how a player responds to defeat throughout their career, Paes believes, that defines their legacy.Everyone can be great when theyre going well, he said. Who can be great when youre down -- thats a true champion.You win once, you win 10 times, thats great. When things are going good everyone looks great. Put your hair in place, you look great. When things are not good, thats when a true gentlemans quality shows up.Resilience, the ability to get through days like this, to get through hardships. To not get too down when you lose, to not get too up when you win. Resilience to keep getting better. resilience where your passion burns so hard, that you want to keep reinventing yourself to get better.The journey to the summit, in whatever discipline youre playing is a long road. When you get to the summit, the view from there is so pretty that it lasts a few hours because the next Monday youre back in a draw with everyone else in tennis.Paes is 43 years old, and it seems like there is nothing left for him to achieve after another huge year. 2016 saw him complete the career Grand Slam in mixed doubles with Martina Hingis, and also saw him compete in his seventh Olympics, the only tennis player to do so.?It was great to get that seventh Olympics, he added. It was fantastic to have the record of most Olympics for any tennis player. It was a dream come true. If you had asked me after my third Olympics if I would be there for the 4th, I would probably say youre crazy.But then doing the fifth, the sixth, the seventh - Im a very blessed man. Just a very, very blessed man. Pretty happy with my career as anyone would be if they were in my shoes.Paes, who still has the passion for tennis, believes, he now has to help inspire others, and become?an example for the younger generation.?Ive had a big career. Really long, really big. I just play because I love tennis, he said. I feel like an ambassador for the game. I feel like in my own way, I can create dreams for young kids, or I can show other people that no matter how old you are that you can continue to persevere and have that resilience to get better every day, to bring the champion in you out every day.I mean look how hard our jobs are. Its a tough economy anywhere in the world. The worlds going through a tough time right now.?But we can create something for people to have a faith, and a belief. Cheap Off White Air Max 90 .Y. - Nelson Mandela will be honoured by the New York Yankees with a plaque in Monument Park. Off White Air Max 90 Outlet . 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Thats resulting in a lot of bizarre kicks that no true practitioner of the Korean martial art would recognize, in a departure that some say cheapens the sport.Sparring in taekwondo has traditionally relied on numerous kicks delivered with technical accuracy; depending on the kick, fighters usually strike with the blade of the foot, the heel or the front of the foot, with toes pointed back. To take advantage of the electronic scoring system -- which merely detects force rather than a competitors skill -- some taekwondo fighters and their coaches have figured out that the best-scoring kicks sometimes sacrifice form for expediency.Ive definitely seen some weird kicks that you would never teach at any taekwondo school, said Steven Lopez, the sports most decorated athlete, who was competing in a record fifth Olympics. They flick their legs up trying to do something to score, but it is not taekwondo.Unfortunately for Lopez, his Tunisian opponent Oussama Oueslati, in his bronze medal match on Friday didnt have a problem with those unusual techniques -- and used many of them to defeat him.Oueslati repeatedly used a move referred to by some as a scorpion kick, where he would swing his leg up towards Lopezs head and then snap it back like a scorpion tail. No such kick exists in the traditional taekwondo repertoire but because the technique results in the foot tapping the head guard, it frequently scores on the electronic system.Fighters wont care whether it looks like a banana kick or a twist kick or whatever it is, as long as its working, said Australian taekwondo competitor Safwan Khalil. He recalled a fight he had during the Rio Games with an opponent whose strange kicks caught him off-guard. When he started throwing those twist kicks, I was just like, `OK, What are we doing here? This is taekwondo? But you just have to roll with it.Kim So-hui, this years Olympic taekwondo champion in the womens 49-kilogram divisionn, said she isnt thrilled about the evolution of the martial art either.ddddddddddddUnfortunately, theres nothing I can do about it, said the South Korean athlete after clinching the gold medal on Wednesday. Its the taekwondo federation that decided that, not the athletes, she said, noting that she declines to use any of the hybrid techniques.The sports governing body acknowledged further scoring changes might be necessary.Athletes are at the very heart of the World Taekwondo Federation and so we are always ready to listen to feedback from them on how they think our sport can be improved, said Jung Kook-Hyun, the federations chairman of the technical committee, in an email. We are committed to constantly modernizing the sport but we always want to find a balance with honoring our traditions, he said, adding the federation would consider possible reforms after Rio.Some coaches are divided about whether or not to recommend using the unorthodox kicks.I dont like teaching these techniques, but thats the sport, said Jean Lopez, who directs the U.S. taekwondo team, including his brother Steven. I think its compromised taekwondo so that its become less about fighting -- and taekwondo is a martial art, a fighting sport, he said.Many athletes say that because the odd techniques often score, they cannot be ignored.Our job as athletes is to adapt as best we can and still give our best and produce good results, said South Koreas Oh Hye-Ri, gold medalist in the womens 67-kilogram division. Oh dominated most of her opponents by employing a steady stream of old-school head kicks that her competitors were unable to counter.Still, she said that she wasnt opposed to the evolution of the sport, even though it means extra training.I also practice a lot of those kicks as well, she said, providing a quick demonstration of what some describe as a donkey kick, where fighters jerk their leg up awkwardly to twist the back of their foot onto their opponents body protector. If it can win the fight, you have to try.