NEWS
OTHER SPORTS
DIARY
PEOPLE
MATCH REPORTS
SLIDE SHOW
ARCHIVES

Paes, Bhupathi to play with new partners at Indianapolis

Shailesh Soni

Leander Paes will face 12th seeded Spainard Albert Costa in the first round of the RCA Championships in Indianapolis.

Paes is in the bottom half of the draw with second seed Pat Rafter and fifth seed Mark Philippoussis. Sampras is the top seed and is placed in the upper half.

Costa is currently ranked 22 on the ATP listings and is hot right now after winning the Gstaad and Kitzbuhel titles on clay courts. He will be playing on hardcourts for the first time since March, but this will still be a very tough match.

The doubles draw at Indianapolis looks rather interesting as both Indian players, the world No. 1 doubles combination, are playing with different partners. Paes is partnering Olivier Delaitre of France. The pair are top seeded and have a first round bye. Bhupathi will partner Andrei Pavel of Austria and is drawn to play a qualifier in the first round, followed by Paes/Delaitre in the second.

With the US Open coming up, one wonders why the Indians are playing with different partners. Maybe, it's because of last minute confirmation of their entries. After his singles match on Saturday, it appeared that Bhupathi was considering withdrawing from doubles, too, due to initial medical advice. Thus, Paes went ahead and signed in with Olivier Delaitre. Bhupathi, however, later decided to play, probably to get some match practice, rather than be away from doubles for over two weeks before the US Open. As Paes had already confirmed his entry, he was forced to team up with Andrei Pavel.

Earlier, in the singles qualifiers, Bhupathi had retired from his first round match against countryman Pralhad Srinath with the score at 7-6(4), 5-6. Bhupathi was serving for the match at 5-4 in the second set against Srinath, when he indicated that that the injury he sustained at Wimbledon was troubling him again. Srinath broke Bhupathi and went ahead at 6-5. At this point, Bhupathi felt he should not aggravate anything by pushing, which he would have had to to hold serve and then go through a tiebreaker, and retired from the match.

Srinath then faced Arnaud Di Pasquale of France, the top seed in the qualifier, probably the highest ranked player he has ever played at an ATP tournament, and went down 3-6, 2-6.