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Paes cracks top-100

Leander Paes has cracked the top 100 on the ATP rankings for the second time in his career.

As per the latest rankings, he is exactly 100 -- his career best being 98, for one week in 1997.

In doubles, the Bhupathi-Paes team remains in third spot, but the individual rankings for Mahesh Bhupathi and Leander Paes have fallen to 7 and 8, as the points from New Haven last year went off the computer last week.

However, they will be able to climb back up the ladder, depending on points earned while they begin their defense of the New Haven title, starting today.

Leander has qualified for the main draw of the New Haven-Pilot Pen International ATP tournament, and will play world number 41, Marc Rosset of Switzerland, in the first round today.

Leander has played the six foot seven tall Marc Rosset once earlier, on the grasscourts of Calcutta in 1993 in course of the Davis Cup tie against Switzerland. On that occasion Leander lost, 6-4, 6-4, 6-4.

That, of course, was the year in which Leander, then barely 20, beat Jakob Hlasek as part of the 3-2 win over the Swiss in the Davis Cup tie, and followed it with the miracle at Frejus, France, in Ramesh Krishnan's company in an upset win over France.

Rosset was in the top-10 in early '96, and stayed in the top-20 till mid '97. Since then, however, he has had quite a bad year except for St. Petersburg and Antwerp, both on carpet, this year in March. On both occasions, he was the losing finalist, going down to Richard Krajicek and Greg Rusedski.

After that, Rosset had a string of early losses, except for the first round upset of Cedric Pioline at Wimbledon, which however was followed by a loss to Chris Wilkinson.

Rosset then lost to world number one Marcelo Rios in straight sets at Gstaad in the first round, to Corretja and Carlos Moya in straight sets in the Davis Cup tie in Spain, and to Slava Dosedel in straight sets in the first round at Stuttgart.

Rosset has not been seen in tournament action over the last three weeks.

A win against Rosset will give Leander 18 bonus points to go with 14 tournament points for a total of 32.

However, at New Haven Leander finds himself in the tougher half of the draw, with Pete Sampras, Sergei Bruguera, Patrick McEnroe, Sargis Sargasian and Lleyton Hewitt among his possible opponents.

Earlier this week, Leander defeated George Bastl 6-3, 6-4 in the finals of the qualifier to make it to the main draw. His doubles partner, Mahesh Bhupathi, however lost a close match with Ivo Heuberger 2-6, 6-3, 4-6.

Mahesh and Leander will be defending the New Haven doubles title they won last year.

They are top seeded this time round, and have a first round bye in the upper half of the draw. They have 372 points to win from here, with reasonably easy rounds early on, but it gets tougher in the later rounds.

The Woodies are the second seeds and are in the lower half of the draw. Leander and Mahesh had a victory over the Woodies in a final last year, but if the recent pattern continues, one of the two teams will lose early! Since the '97 Cincinnati Super 9, these two teams have been in at least 15 or more tournaments, but have never met.

Yevgeny Kafelnikov and Daniel Vacek are third seeds, with Justin Gimelstob and Jonathan Stark as sixth, both in the upper half of the draw and thus potential opponents for the Indian combo..

Leander and Mahesh however will first face the winner of the first round match between Wayne Arthurs/Peter Tramacchi and Daniel Orsanic/Jan Siemerink.