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Eighth Grand Slam semi-final for Paes/Bhupathi

Shailesh Soni

The top seeded Indian pair of Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi moved a step closer towards their first US Open men's doubles title, defeating the Australian qualifier pair of Ben Ellwood and Michael Tebbutt, 6-3, 6-4 in the quarter-finals at the Louis Armstrong Stadium yesterday.

This will be their eighth semi-final in the last nine Grand Slams for the Indians, who are attempting to become the first team since John Fitzgerald-Anders Jarryd in 1991 to win three Grand Slam titles in one season. Bhupathi and Paes won the French Open and Wimbledon doubles titles earlier this year and were the losing finalist at the 1999 Australian Open.

For the Indians, who have won three tournaments this year, the US Open is their 13th tournament. They have a 29-8 record during the 1999 season, and are playing in only their second tournament together since winning Wimbledon in July, after which Mahesh Bhupathi took a month off to recover from a pulled stomach muscle injury he suffered at Wimbledon.

The Indians had reached the semi-finals of the 1998 US Open, where they lost to Sandon Stolle/Cyril Suk, the scoreline reading 3-6, 6-7(4).

Till now, Paes and Bhupathi have collected 403 ATP points and can add 241 more points (including 24 bonus), with a win today. They have also won $85,000 thus far and are basically assured of the year-end No 1 ranking for the first time. That comes with an extra $150,000 from the ATP as courtside bonus, to be given after the Hartford Championships. It's clear that none of the present teams can pick up 1500-plus points from now on and overtake the Indians, even if they win the Hartford championships. They have about 3400 points from this year and everybody else is below 2200.

It only took an hour and 10 minutes for the Indians to finish off the match. The Indians broke the Australians in the third game of the first set and proceeded on to win the set comfortably at 6-3.

In the second set, once again the Indians struck early, in the fourth game, and went on to hold serves thereafter with no problems for a rather straightforward 6-3, 6-4 victory.

They face the unseeded pair of Andrei Olhovskiy and David Prinosil in the semi-finals to be played today. Olhovsky and Prinosil, who continued their winning streak with a 6-4, 6-2 victory over No. 6 seeded Wayne Black of Zimbabwe and Australian Standon Stolle. Olhovskiy and Prinosil have yet to drop a set in four matches.

About their opponents, the 32-year-old Russian, Andrei Olhovskiy is a veteran, who plays with a lot of partners and has 18 doubles titles in his career. He has played with David Prinosil a couple of times in the past. The 26-year-old Prinosil, from Germany, has generally been in the top 50 or 75 of singles and doubles for a few years.

In the other quarter-final matches, No. 11 seeds Canadian Sebastien Lareau and American Alex O'Brien upset No. 3 seeds and former two-time US Open champs Todd Woodbridge and Mark Woodforde 7-6(2), 5-7, 6-3. The Australians were looking to add to the nine Grand Slam doubles titles they've won during the 1990s.

Swede Jonas Bjorkman and Byron Black of Zimbabwe did away with South Africans Jeff Coetzee and Brent Haygarth in straight sets 6-3, 6-3. Black and Bjorkman fired 76 per cent of their first serves to earn a meeting with Lareau and O'Brien in the semis.