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Paes-Lareau shocked

Shailesh Soni

The top seeded doubles pair of Leander Paes and Sebastien Lareau crashed out of the Australian Open Tennis Championships in the first round today.

Paes/Lareau lost to the unseeded American pair of Geoff Grant and Jack Waite, 6-7(2), 6-2, 5-7.

The result must be an absolute shocker for Indian tennis fans though it can be said that it wasn't totally unexpected either. For the two players to join together after 4-5 years and just start playing top seed quality doubles was going to be tough any time, especially with one moving to the backhand court.

The first set was totally eventless. Both the teams were content to hold serve rather easily. In the tie-breaker, at 2-3 on serve, Paes lost his two serves and the top seeds were down 2-5. Next, Waite served it out for 2-7 to push the top seeds down by a set.

In the second set Paes/Lareau started well and cruised along holding serve mostly at love and troubling Grant/Waite in every one of their service games, getting breaks in game 4 and 8, both off Waite, for an easy 18 minute 6-2 set. The dominance of the top seeds in this set can be measured by the fact that in the whole set, Grant/Waite may have won only 10 or 12 points.

Paes/Lareau continued to dominate Grant/Waite in the third set also and went up 3-0, breaking Grant in game 2. Then at 4-1, Grant faced break point again at advantage out, which he held. After Paes and Waite held serve easily, Lareau was in trouble and he was broken at 4-3 on serve. Paes and Grant then held serve easily as the score moved to 5-5. Then Lareau was broken once again. Waite served off the last game to upset the top seeds.

The result means Paes will lose 658 points from the last Australian Open final. It could cost him the No.1 ranking should Bjorkman, the Woodies, Palmer or Stolle win the title. He will stay in the top-3 at least as he has only about 325 points to defend till French Open in four months.

Paes will now figure in only the mixed doubles which gets under way on Saturday.