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Paes, Bhupathi top seeds for French Open doubles

The India doubles pair of Mahesh Bhupathi and Leander Paes have been given top billing for the French Open doubles competition.

The draw which was released on Monday pits the top seeds against Juan Carrasco and Jairo Velasco in the first round. The Indian pair is placed in the first quarter of the upper half of the 64-team draw. It seems to be good a good and clear draw for Paes and Bhupathi till the second round. A possible third round opponent should be 15th seeds Norval/Ullyett of South Africa, who should not be too difficult for the Indians to beat.

The Indian pair could encounter stiff opposition in the quarter-final stage, where they might face one of the two hot teams in 10th seed Novak/Rikl or eighth seed Ferreira/Leach. The good aspect of the draw is that there is hardly any dangerous floater teams in their quarter which could cause an upset.

The bottom quarter of the upper half is tougher, with third seeds, the Woodies, sixth seeds Delaitre/Santoro, and a bunch of dangerous floaters like Kulti/Tillstrom, Kuerten/Lapentti, and Arthurs/Kratzmann, in addition to the other seeds, 14th seed Grabb/MacPherson and 10th seed Johnson/Suk.

In the upper quarter of the lower half of the draw are the fifth seeds Jonas Bjorkman/Patrick Rafter, 12th seed Sebastien Lareau/Alex O'Brien and 13th seed Patrick Galbraith/Justin Gimelstob.

Two interesting teams to watch in this quarter are Byron Black/Wayne Ferreira and Goran Ivanisevic/Jeff Tarango.

In the bottom quarter of the bottom half are the teams of second seeds seed Mark Knowles/Daniel Nestor, fourth seeds Wayne Black/Sandon Stolle, seventh seeds Paul Haarhuis/Jared Palmer, ninth seeds David Adams/John De Jager and 16th seeds Yevgeny Kafelnikov/Max Mirnyi.

The combination of Richey Reneberg/Jonathan Stark form the dangerous team to watch in this quarter.

Interestingly, all the ATP doubles tournaments this year have been won by different teams. Ellis Ferreira/Rick Leach are the World number 1 team after winning the Italian Open, which is also a clay court event.

Paes and Bhupati have only one tournament victory to their credit this year, the Gold Flake Open at Chennai. They lost in the final of the Australian Open to (5) Jonas Bjorkman/Patrick Rafter 3-6, 4-6.