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Paes goes down fighting to Vicente

Wildcard entrant Leander Paes lost to 48th-ranked Fernando Vicente of Spain 0-6, 6-4, 3-6 in the first round of the Dubai Duty Free Open tennis tournament yesterday.

The first set was a nightmare for the Indian as he was troubled by Vicente's speed to the short ball and cross-court passing skills. Vincente combined touch tennis with hard-hitting baseline play to outclass the serve and volley game of Paes. Paes tried attacking at every opportunity in the first set though he couldn't find the rhythm to score points.

In the second set, Paes got the early break for a 2-0 lead, but gave away the break. He got another break in the 9th game for a 5-4 lead and took the set 6-4.

Though the Indian managed to serve better and cut off rallies at the net for the second set, he faltered at crucial moments in the third, with a double fault in game 7, to allow his opponent to go through.

Now Leander will play in the doubles competition with Nicolas Lapentti of Ecuador. They meet the third seeded pair of Novak/Rikl on Wednesday.

The Indian, just coming from playing the Davis Cup tie on grass, found the conditions here quite different as the courts were very bouncy.

Despite the loss, what is encouraging is the fact that he took a set off Vicente. It's been a long time since the Indian took a set off a top-50 player on any surface other than grass. The last time he did that was against Pete Sampras in August 1998.

Meanwhile, Leander has dropped to 140 in the Entry System Placement rankings this week, after 56 points from last year's Calcutta challenger title dropped off. He will have a chance to put those points back in from the three Indian challengers (one on grass and two on hardcourts) starting next week, each giving 50 points for the winner. At least 75 points from those three challengers will get him close to 110 in the rankings and three titles will put him inside top-100 again. A very tough task, but he can do it as he has a four-challenger title streak in India already.