Paes started his Davis Cup career in 1990, when he partnered Zeeshan Ali in doubles to beat the Japanese team in a five-set encounter. His Davis cup record was 89–32 as of July 2015. He played a key role on the Indian team that reached the World Group from 1991 to 1998. He was part of the Indian team that reached the semifinals 1993 with wins against Switzerland and France, eventually losing to Australia. In singles, his major wins came against the French duo of Arnaud Boetsch and Henri Leconte in 1993, Wayne Ferreira in 1994, and Goran Ivanišević in 1995 when India defeated Croatia, beating Jan Siemerink in 1995 to defeat Netherlands, and Jiří Novák in 1997. He teamed up with Bhupathi to beat &lt;a href="Sa%C5%A1a%20Hir%C5%A1zon"&gt;Hirszon/&lt;/a&gt;Ivanisevic of Croatia in 1995, Damm/Korda of the Czech Republic in 1997, Massú/Ríos of Chile in 1997, Broad/Henman in 1998, and Aspelin/Björkman of Sweden in 2005. In 2007, Leander had three wins (two doubles and one singles) and no losses.