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Paes-Bhupathi score second victory

Shailesh Soni

The top-seeded pair of Mahesh Bhupathi and Leander Paes and second seeds Todd Woodbridge and Mark Woodforde virtually clinched semi-final spots at the ATP Tour World Doubles Championships yesterday.

The Indian pair improved to 2-0 record in the round robin as they got past third seeds Ellis Ferreira of South Africa and Rick Leach of the United States 6-4, 6-4 in a Gold Group match, while in the Green Group, the Woodies beat the combo of S.Lareau and A.O'Brien 7-6(7-3), 6-4.

Despite the straight sets victory, it was not at all a one-sided match as the score shows.

Paes and Bhupathi started well and effected the first set break in the 5th game, and then it was a matter of holding on.

The Indians got the next break at the first chance at 30-40 in game 3 of the second set. Paes had three double-faults and faced a break attempt in game 8 but held after 2 dueces to go up 5-3.

In the next game, Ferreira and Leach faced two-match points at 15-40, but won four points in a row to hold before Bhupathi served out the final game with no hiccups.

The match took an hour and nine minutes.

Paes and Bhupathi had a first serve percentage of 59 (38 of 64), which is good. They won 64 points to 58 by Ferreira and Leach, showing that the match was rather close.

In other matches today, Wayne Black/ Sandon Stolle beat P.Norval/ K.Ullyett 7-6(7-5), 6-1 in the Gold Group, while in the Green Group, P.Haarhuis/ J.Palmer beat D.Adams/ J-L.DeJager 6-4, 7-5.

The standings in the Gold Group:

Team	Match	Sets	Games
Paes-Bhupathi	2-0	4-0	25-17
Ferreira-Leach	1-1	2-2	20-17
Black-Stolle	1-1	2-2	18-19
Norvall-Ullyett	0-2	0-4	16-26

As we can see, if Ferreira-Leach beat Norvall-Ullyett and Paes-Bhupathi lose to Black-Stolle tomorrow, there will be three teams with 2-1 records, and "sets won" will be the tie-breaker. If there is still a tie, "games won" will be the tie-breaker. Basically, absolutely nothing has been decided, and our guys better go out to win tomorrow also. Since all the matches have been straight sets for everyone so far, and also as our guys have not won any set by more than two games, they have no such tie-breaker advantages so far. They may just have to play well tomorrow too!

How about the Woodies? They are apparently looking really good. They had lost four of the last five to Lareau/OBrien, but beat them in straight sets today. Woodforde said yesterday, "Watch out, the Woodies are back!" .. Hmmm, he must be really feeling it, to say that. This is getting to be a very interesting Hartford tournament, unlike one had expected. Everybody seems to be playing well, and despite the straight sets wins in all eight matches so far, none have been cakewalks for the winners.

Bhupathi and Paes, the 1997 finalists, became the first team since 1952 to reach all four Grand Slam finals this season, winning the French Open and Wimbledon in addition to a title at the Gold Flake Open in their homeland.

The Woodies are in the midst of their longest title drought as a team. They have not won a tournament since capturing the Sybase Open in San Jose and Kroger St. Jude in Memphis in February, but have reached five other finals.

Woodbridge and Woodforde won this event in 1992 and 1996 and reached the final in 1993 and 1994.

Haarhuis teamed with longtime partner and countryman Jacco Eltingh to defeat Mark Knowles and Daniel Nestor in last year's final. It was the last of 39 titles the two claimed together.