Paes/Bhupathi begin with a bang

Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi began their campaign in the Gold Flake World doubles tennis championship in grand style, shocking third seeds Paul Haarhuis of the Netherlands and Sandon Stolle of Australia in straight sets in Bangalore on Wednesday.

The unseeded Indian pair displayed the form of old before winning 7-5, 6-4.

Seventh seeded Swedish pair Johan Landsberg and Simon Aspelin pulled off a surprise 6-3, 3-6, 6-1 win against top seeds Ellis Ferreira and Rick Leach in the last match of the evening.

Landsberg and Aspelin took full advantage of a completely off-colour Ferreira and Leach to blast past the top seeds on a day full of upsets.

Johnson/Norval upset 4th seeds O'Brien/Parmer

Donald Johnson of the United States and Piet Norval of South Africa caused the first upset of the championship when they defeated fourth seeds Alex O'Brien and Jared Palmer of the US, 7-5, 7-6(10-7) in a Gold Group league match. The match lasted one hour and 37 minutes.

In the first set, games went with service till 5-5, when the 11th seeded Johnson/Norval got the vital service break to take the set 7-5.

The set was equally contested. O'Brien/Palmer had two breaks points in the set but were unable to convert any. However, Johnson/Norval converted the only break they got which sufficed to take the set.

The second set was a repeat of the first, as games went with serves before going into the tie-breaker. Johnson/Norval kept their cool to win the tie-breaker, at 10-7, and the match.

Don Johnson and Piet Norval, who are currently seeded 11th, have reached five finals, winning three in their first year together, whereas Alex O'Brien is one half of the defending champion team along with Sebastien Lareau.

Earlier, eighth seeded Australians Josh Eagle and Andrew Florent won their first league match in the championship, defeating 14th seeds Jaime Oncins of Brazil and Daniel Orsanic of Argentina 6-1, 3-6, 6-4. The match lasted one hour and 42 minutes.

The Australian pair started with a bang and were quickly up a set. However, the South American's came back strongly to take the second set. In the third set, the Australian pair started positively and were quickly up 4-0 before the South American's came back to win a game. However, Australians did well to finish the set at 6-4 and earn two points.

The Australians, who are currently seeded eighth in the ATP rankings, have been playing together for long. This year they reached the quarterfinals of the Australian Open and lost a close match to eventual champions Ellis Ferreira and Rick Leach. They also made it to the final in the Delray Beach, Kitzbuhel, Austria and the Canadian Tennis Masters series tournaments.

Josh and "Florie" were also semi-finalists in London, at the Hamburg Tennis Masters series, and at the Swedish resort city of Bastad.

In the second match of day, the Gold Group teams Alex O'Brien of USA and Jared Palmer of USA will face Donald Johnson of USA and Piet Norval of South Africa.