Paes-Bhupathi get tough draw

French Open champions Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi are seeded fifth in the doubles draw for the US Open 2001.

The duo will face Sergio Roitman of Argentina and Andres Schneiter of Italy in the first round. Roitman and Schneiter are currently ranked 49th on the ATP team doubles rankings and have lost in the first round of all the three Grand Slam events this year.

The two teams have never played each other at an ATP Tour or Grand Slam event.

The Indians are placed in the upper quarter of the bottom half of the draw. It looks to be a reasonably tough draw for the Indians as they are likely to face the fourth seeds Max Mirnyi of Belarus and Sandon Stolle of Australia in the quarter-finals.

Ninth seed Wayne Ferreira of South Afrca and Yevgeny Kafelnikov of Russia and 13th seed Australian pair of Joshua Eagle and Andrew Florent are the other seeded teams in the quarter. Both the teams are good doubles pairs and quite capable of beating the Indians.

The bottom quarter of the bottom half has the second seeds American pair of Don Johnson / Jared Palmer and the eighth seeds American Bryans twins.

Jonas Bjorkman of Sweden and Todd Woodbridge of Australia are the top seeds, placed in the upper half of the draw with third seeds Czech pair of Jiri Novak / David Rikl and sixth seeds Daniel Nestor of Canada / Nenad Zimonjic of Yugoslavia.

Meanwhile, Nirupama Vaidyanathan lost in the first round of the women's singles qualifier to Anastassia Rodionova of Russia 6-4, 3-6, 5-7 after wasting three match-points.

In the doubles, she missed the main draw narrowly, and ended up as the top seeds in the qualifiers. Playing with new partner Andrea Vanc of Romania, the duo lost their first round match to the American pair of Jennifer Embry and Abigail Spears 3-6, 2-6.