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Paes meets Hill is US Open qualifiers

Shailesh Soni

Indian tennis star Leander Paes will face Michael Hill of Australia in the first round of the US Open singles qualifiers which start today.

Paes is down 50 places - to 178 - in the ATP rankings, and thus has to play the singles qualifiers. His doubles partner Mahesh Bhupathi has decided to skip the qualifiers on his trainer's advice, "to wait for some more time before pushing hard with singles".

Meanwhile, Bhupathi, in order to stay sharp and focused, will play doubles with Wayne Ferreira at the $325,000 Hamlet Cup in Long Island. Ferreira is also not playing singles this week.

Bhupathi and Ferreira are seeded second at the Hamlet Cup and will face Grant Silcock and Eric Taino in the first round. Olivier Delaitre and Fabrice Santoro are the top seeds.

In the women's qualifiers, Nirupama Vaidyanathan, the lone India, will face 14th seed Tathiana Garbin of Italy. The match is scheduled for today.

Tathiana, 22, is an Italian, currently ranked 121 on the WTA rankings. This year she has won five matches against eight defeats.