Paes-Bhupathi advance

Shailesh Soni

The Indian doubles duo of Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi, fresh from the Frecnch Open triumph, started their grass season sucessfully, moving into the second round of the Stella Artois grass court championships at Queen's Club, London.

The Indians, who are seeded 7th, defeated Neville Godwin of South Africa and Jack Waite of the United States 6-3, 3-6, 6-4 in the first round.

The Indians had some problems in the second set but it seems they have regained their habit of not letting that go into the third set, which is really what has changed since the start of the clay season.

Their round of 16 opponents are yet to be determined. They will face the winner of the match between Marius Barnard/Martin Lee and wildcards Arvind Parnar/Jim Thomas.

The draw at Stella Artois is of 28 teams, where the top four teams get first round byes. The Indians are in the upper half of the draw, with 4th seeds Michael Hill and Jeff Tarango and the top seeds Wayne Ferreira and Todd Woodbridge.

Interestingly, Neville Godwin was an old doubles partner for Leander - they won a doubles title together in 1996 at the Jerusalem challenger. Godwin was also at the losing end when Leander beat him at the final of the Newport Hall of Fame tournament in 1998, when he picked up his only ATP singles title.

Meanwhile, in the new ATP rankings released this week, Mahesh has moved up to No 9 and Leander to No. 23 in the doubles individual rankings. That is high enough for them to get a seeding in the 6 through 8 range at Wimbledon. Their team ranking is now at No 3, with 350 points, 17 points behind Pala-Vizner, whom they defeated in the Frecnh Open finals. Bjorkman and Woodbridge lead the rankings with 614 points.