Haarhius/Stolle win; Ferreira/Leach lose again

Faisal Shariff

Third seeded Paul Haarhuis of the Netherlands and Sandon Stolle of Australia defeated fourth seeds Alex O'Brien and Jared Palmer of the United States 5-7, 6-2, 6-4 to score their first victory in the Gold Group league at the World doubles championship, in Bangalore on Thursday. The match took two hours and 1 minute.

In the second match of the evening, 13th seeds Jaime Oncins and Daniel Orsanic of Brazil shocked top seeds Ellis Ferreira of South Africa and Rick Leach of the United States 1-6, 7-5, 7-5 to stay in the hunt for a semi-final berth. Both the teams had lost their opening league matches on Wednesday.

Seventh seeds Simon Aspelin and Johan Landsberg of Sweden stayed on course for a semi-final berth, beating eighth seeds Josh Eagle and Andrew Florent of Australia 7-5, 7-6 (7-4) in the third match of the evening.

Haarhuis and Stolle lost their opening match to Paes and Bhupathi on Wednesday. Thursday's win gives them two points and keeps them in contention for the semi-final berth. The Americans, who suffered their second reverse, are virtually out of the semi-final race.

Both teams started the first set with caution and the set went with serves till the 11th game, when the Americans got the vital service break. O'Brien/Palmer served the next game out to take the set at 7-5.

In the second set, Haarhuis/Stolle got two quick breaks to take the set 6-2. 21 unforced errors by O'Brien/Palmer as compared to 14 by Haarhuis/Stolle proved costly for the Americans.

In the third set, Haarhuis/Stolle played confidently to wrap the set and match.

Haarhuis, who had earlier partnered Palmer, who was on the other side of the net, played much better than he did on Wednesday. In the post-match conference he stated that he played better than his previous outing and that wasn't so difficult simply because he played atrociously before that.

"I have never served so badly in my life," said the 34-year-old Dutchman.

Stolle said it was another match for them, and that they weren't too worried at the start of play after last night's defeat.

Talking about the match he said: "We should have won the first set after breaking early. We created a lot of opportunities. Playing the first match of the day is always difficult because the balls are faster at day. They get slower at night he said.

Haarhuis said playing against Palmer did not have much of a difference to the outcome of the match.

Commenting on the time that the pair takes in between points, Stolle said they discuss strategy most of the time while sometimes, to get their minds off the game, they discuss what they had for breakfast.

Palmer on the other hand was extremely disappointed. He said he did not know what happened on court. The American said: "They came with some good returns. We weren't as sharp enough. We had opportunities and we didn't convert them into winners.

"The third set was very high quality tennis though. I don't think we have a chance from here on but we will go in tomorrow with a fresh approach and try to win the last game. It's the worse position to be in but there's little that can be done about it."

In a match interrupted by a power failure, the Leach-Ferreira duo looked like coasting towards an easy win when the South Americans stepped on the gas after the floodlights were burning bright again. In the end it was the brave who survived. The South Americans had eight winners compared to four dished out by the Leach/Ferreira duo. The South Americans however had more unforced errors (31) than the numero uno-ranked team (23).

"Never seen so many winners in my life," said a bemused although disappointed Leach, who is due to retire at the end of the year.

"It was a tough match to lose. We had so many opportunities but they raised their game. When we broke at 5-4 in the final set I thought we'd win. But their confidence was high although we didn't relax either," added the 35-year-old veteran from California.

"Tennis is a cruel sport. It doesn't mean a thing that you are ranked number one. The truth is that you have to win. Our chances are slim and I'd be disappointed that our trip to Bangalore will be cut short," he added.

Oncins, the golden-haired Brazilian was ecstatic with the victory as was his partner, Argentinean Orsanic.

After a disastrous start in the first set the duo pulled themselves out of troubled waters with some breath-taking passing shots.

"We didn't start well. After we lost serve we were lucky to get a good break. The power failure in between was pretty disturbing and it is always bad to get off rhythm. Fortunately we held ourselves and I would say that it was a great win," said Oncins.

Commenting on his fellow countryman, Gustavo Kuerten, 'Guga' as he is affectionately called, Oncins said Guga is a national hero and "it would be great if we could win this tournament and cause an upset here".

Orsanic seemed more focused about the route ahead and stated that they always believed that they could win against any team. After this upset, he said, they were looking forward to their game tomorrow against Swedes Simon Aspelin and Johan Landsberg to secure a place in the semis on Saturday.