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Paes, Bhupathi in last eight

The Indian combination of Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi are having a great run at the French Open this year. The top seeded doubles pair won their third round match yesterday and entered the quarter-finals of the doubles competition. They got the better of 15th seeds Piet Norval/Kevin Ullyett of South Africa 7-5, 3-6, 6-4. They next meet eighth seeds Ellis Ferreira/Rick Leach.

It was a tough match for the Indians, and was almost identical to their first round match during which they had to struggle. After games went with serves, they broke Piet Norval in the11th game to take the first set 7-5.

In the second set, Paes dropped serve in the fourth game, but broke Norval in the seventh game to level scores. However, he dropped serve again in the eighth game. And though they tried hard in the final game of the set, taking Norval/Ullyett to deuce several times, they could not prevent the South Africans from taking the set.

In the final set, the Indians were on the receiving end. At one moment the scene looked scary, with Mahesh starting the 9th game down 0-30. However, he went on to hold his serve. And, just when it looked like the Indians weren't getting any points off their opponenents, they suddenly went up 15-40 on Piet Norval's serve in the 10th game, and proceded to win the set and match.

Most of the seeded teams have fallen out, with only three left in the fray. The other big teams to go out crashing in the pre-quarter-finals were fourth seeds Black/Stolle and fifth seeds Bjorkman/Rafter.

The match of the tournament could be the quarter-final clash between the Indians and Ferreira/Leach, who went ahead of the Indian pair in the team rankings just before the start of French Open. The match will be played on Tuesday.

From the rankings point of view, the quarter-final match could clinch Bhupathi and Ferreira the No.1 and 2 individaul doubles rankings. When the French Open began, the No. 1 rank was wide open as most of the top 10-15 players were hot contenders. However, by the end of the third round, very few were left in the fray. In fact, the equation is very simple now as only two contenders are left in the fray for the No. 1 spot.

In the bottom half of the draw, only 16th seeds Kafelnikov/Mirnyi are left among the seeds. The other dangerous team is the unseeded pair of Ivanisevic and Tarango.

Paes and Bhupathi have a score to settle against Ferreira/Leach after losing in the semi-finals at Indian Wells. Both the teams are 2-2 in head-to-head against each other.

For Paes it was a rather profitable Sunday. He returned to the court after barely 90 minutes of his men's doubles match to score a quick pre-quarter-final mixed doubles victory. Paes and Lisa Raymond beat Catherine Barclay and John DeJager 6-3, 6-4. They will face the sixth pair of Larisa Neiland/Rick Leach in the quarter-finals.

Agencies