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Paes out of Shanghai Open

Leander Paes lost a three-setter match to 6th seed Ramon Delgado of Paraguay, in the second round of the Heineken Open being played in Shanghai.

He won the first set comfortably, but Delgado came back strongly in the second set to take it 3-6.

In the third set, both the players held their serves to take it into the tiebreaker, Delgado holding his nerve to take the match 6-2, 3-6, 5-7(6). It has been a long time since Leander lost a comeback three-setter

Leander did defend the points from last year's Shanghai Open, which should see him climb a couple of notches in the next ATP rankings list.

Leander and Delgado have met in the main draw of two tournaments earlier, first in the Belo Horizonte challenger and then the Brasilia challenger, both in Brazil in 1995, and Leander took both ties.

Delgado has improved his game since, not to mention his rankings, having moved from 125 at the start of the year, to 66 when he took on Leander here. Along with Leander, Delgado is one of the guys who has beaten Sampras this year.

Delgado will play the winner of the match between Jan-Michael Gambill and Michael Tabbutt.

In other second round matches, Paul Harrhuis beat Karsten Braasch of Germany 7-6(6), 6-4, to set up a quarterfinal clash with Mark Woodforde, who beat Sargis Sargsian 6-2, 6-2.

Top seed Goran Ivanisevic beat Justin Gimelstob 6-1, 6-4 in the second round to enter the quarter finals. He will play Kenneth Carlsen, who defeated Steve Campbell 6-3, 3-6, 6-3.

Eight seed Todd Woodbridge defeated Lionel Roux 6-2, 3-6, 6-2 to set up a quarterfinal clash with second seed Micheal Chang, who outplayed Laurence Tielemann 6-3, 6-3.

In doubles the dynamic duo of Mahesh Bhupathi and Leander Paes moved into the semifinals, defeating their dutch opponents Sjeng Schalken and John Van Lottum.

The Indian pair defeated the Dutchmen 6-4, 6-3 in the quarterfinals.

Meanwhile, the Davis Cup draw for the Asia-Oceania Group-I has been announced. India is seeded first and Japan second.

India, Korea, New Zealand and China are in the top half of the draw, from where one team will advance after two rounds in 1999 to the world group qualifier for 2000 next September (the teams from the two halves do not play each other -- somebody from the world group 16 losers in early '99 will be the qualifier opponent).

India faces Korea in the first round, but Korea has the choice of ground, which means India will be playing away. New Zealand meanwhile goes to China.

Korea has Yong-Il Yoon within the top 200, but India on form should be able to pull it off without much trouble.

In the other half, Japan plays at Lebanon and Pakistan plays at Uzbekistan, with one advancing from this batch of four.