Sanjay Dutt is certainly a big hearted man. While the reams were being written about his wife, Rhea's affair with Leander Paes, all we heard from Dutt was the praise for the ace tennis player.

"Leander is a wonderful, friendly and down-to-earth person, and we clicked pretty well when we met. We spent time together in Hyderabad. He is a fabulous person," he said.

Amidst the high profile brawl involving Paes and Mahima, latter walked away with all the sympathy.

Now when the couple has officially parted way we hear that Rhea has made it all the way to New York with a few friends to cheer for the tennis star, where Leander reached into the semi finals of the men's and the mixed doubles of a tournament.

"Yes, it's true that Rhea is in NY," confirms friends after repeated attempts to contact her on her cellphone resulted in an American Telecom operator saying that the number was unavailable.

As a result of this new development, gossipmongers have got enough fodder to write about the spicy affair. "It's obvious why Rhea is in NY; she couldn't have developed a love for tennis overnight," they claim.

But friends were vociferous in her defence. "Rhea was never the other woman," they said. "As far as Leander's relationship with Mahima is concerned, it has been over for a long time now."