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Mixed luck for Paes at Newport

Leander Paes's ongoing idyll came to an abrupt end on Friday, at the Hall of Fame Tennis Championships at Newport, when he lost to his doubles partner, Wayne Arthurs of Australia 7-6(9-7), 6-7(3-7), 3-6 in the singles quarterfinal match.

Paes then came back on court, this time in tandem with Arthurs, to defeat M.Navarra/S.Pescosolido, 6-7(4), 7-6(3), 7-5 to enter the semifinals of the doubles event.

The singles quarterfinal match was a tough one, with both players holding on to their serves in the first two sets, both of which were decided by tie-breakers. In the third set, Paes' service game let him down, and he went down by the odd set in three.

Wayne will now face Former NCAA champion Chris Woodruff of the United States in one of Saturday's semifinals, while Denmark's Kenneth Carlsen will face unseeded Italian Laurence Tieleman in the other.

The loss here has left Leander in big trouble, despite all the hard work, in singles. He loses 108 points of the 151 he had earned last year at Newport. He had gone up 7-0 on these courts and had won 13 of his last 15 games there, but he badly needed 2 more wins this time. The defeat drops Leander to about 130 on the ATP ranking, with 364 points, and he will now miss the chance to make a direct entry into the US Open, the draw for which closes on Monday, July 19.

Leander now has two weeks off, which will give him time for some rest and recuperation. He will then be back in action in the singles draw at the Infiniti Open in Los Angeles starting from July 26.

He will also be in the draw at the RCA Championships in Indianapolis starting August 16. Leander is not clear about the two Super 9s (du Maurier Open in Montreal and the Great American Insurance ATP Championship in Cincinnati) in between these two tournaments, as he hasn't made the draws for either of them. He could drop all the way to 175 or so on the ATP rankings if he doesn't do something drastic, like skipping Montreal and Cincinnati Super 9s and going to the Lexington and Binghamton Challengers to collect vital points in the singles.

In other news, Syed Fazaluddin and Ofer Sela of Isreal are in the semifinals of the doubles event at the Bristol Challenger. They defeated Adriano Ferreira/Jose Frontera, 6-3, 5-7, 6-1 in the quarterfinals.

Earlier Fazaluddin missed the main draw rather narrowly and was the 3rd seed in the qualifier. After a first round bye, Fazal went down to Frederik Loven of Sweden 1-6, 4-6.

Mahesh Bhupathi was supposed to be at this Challenger and was to be the 7th seed, before he withdrew because of the abdominal injury.