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Paes back in action

Shailesh Soni

Indian tennis ace Leander Paes will be back in action this week after a short vacation, during which he says he had a good time horse riding!.

He is in good physical shape, without any injury problems.

Yesterday, Paes had a practise session, hitting the ball with Pete Sampras, and is looking forward to some good results at the LA Mercedes-Benz Cup starting today.

Paes will face a qualifier, Eric Taino of US, in the first round later today. Taino defeated countryman Denny Westerman in the third round of the qualifier.

It appears that Paes has got the kind of draw he hoped for: a qualifier first, and then a high seed.

The draw till the semi-finals:

1 Andre Agassi   (USA)  vs   Jan-Michael Gambill (USA) \ 
  Leander Paes   (IND)  vs Q Eric Taino (USA)          / \
  Daniel Nestor  (CAN)  vs   Axel Pretzsch (GER)       \ /
7 Lleyton Hewitt (AUS)  vs   Alex OBrien (USA)         /

Paes is in the upper half of the draw with top seed Andre Agassi as his potential second round opponent. The other seeds in the upper half are fourth seed Marcelo Rios, sixth seed Goran Ivanisevic and seventh seed Lleyton Hewitt of Australia.

Sampras, seeded second here, is in the lower half of the draw with third seed Tim Henman.

Paes will also be playing doubles, partnering Jonas Bjorkman. They are the top seeds and are in the upper half of the draw. They face A Florent and P Kilderry in their opening match.

Second seeds W Black/S Stolle are in the lower half of the draw. The half has some interesting teams, like Pete Sampras pairing with Paul Annacone and Mark Woddforde playing with Lleyton Hewitt.