Paes-Bhupathi team up for US Open

And finally, the news Indian tennis fans were waiting for -- Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi are back together again, for the big one. The two will play the US Open together, marking their return to the Grand Slam circuit they dominated last season with two titles and two other final placings.

The two, who are now together for the Hamlet Cup being played at Long Island, USA, seem to be enjoying their reunion, what is more. They stormed into the semifinal of their comeback event, defeated the world's 16th ranked pair of Simon Aspelin/Johan Landsberg, 7-6(5), 7-6(6) in the quarterfinal.

This being just their second match together after their reunion, it was significant that both games were won in tight tie-breakers, putting paid to doubts about whether they could get back their habit of pumping each other up for the big points.

In Saturday's semifinal, the Indian pair will play the world's 12th ranked pairing of Jan-Michael Gambill and Scott Humphries.

In the other semifinal, the second-seeded pairing of Martin Damm/Dominik Hrbaty will face Jonathan Stark/Kevin Ullyett. In the quarterfinals, Stark/Ullyett defeated the qualifiers Julien Boutter/Fabrice Santoro 6-3, 6-4, while Damm/Hrbaty defeated wildcards Thomas Johansson/Magnus Norman 6-4, 4-6, 6-3.

Meanwhile, the decision to reunite marks a major turnaround from earlier commitments. Earlier, Mahesh had committed to play the US Open with Mark Knowles, while Paes had teamed up with Jan Siemerink. But keeping in mind the upcoming Olympics, the Indians decided to get together at the US Open in order to get much-needed match practise ahead of Sydney.

Though unseeded, Paes and Bhupathi have been placed in the top 1/8th of the draw (they were top-seeded last year), along with the top seeded Mark Woodforde and Todd Woodbridge and 16th seeds Tomas Carbonel and Martin Garcia.

The Indian duo will open their campaign against the unseeded pair of Jaime Oncins of Brazil and Daniel Orsanic of Argentina, in the first round. In the second, they will face the winner of the first round match between Leyton Hewitt/Max Mirnyi and Jonathan Stark/Eric Taino. If they get over that hurdle, they could then face the fabled Woodies in the third round.

Last year, Paes and Bhupathi, then the top-ranked doubles pair in the world, had lost to Alex O'Brien and Sebastien Lareau in the finals.