Paes-Bhupathi get tough draw

Shailesh Soni

The top Indian doubles pair of Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi have a pretty tough draw at the Australian Open 2001 men's doubles event.

The Indians will face the 10th seeded Australian pair of Joshua Eagle and Andrew Florent in the first round. They are in the lower half of the upper half of the draw, and are drawn to face fifth seeds Sabestian Lareau and Alex O'Brien in the third round, and fourth seeds Jonas Bjorkman and Todd Woodbridge in the quarter-finals.

Daniel Nestor and Sandon Stolle are the top seeds, and are placed in the upper half of the draw while Ellis Ferreira and David Rikl are the second seeds, and are placed in lower half on the draw.

Last year, Paes played with Sebastien Lareau; the pair was top seeded. They crashed out in the first round.

Bhupathi did not play as he was sidelined with a shoulder injury.

Nirupama Vaidyanathan and Renata Kolbovic of Canada made it into the women's doubles draw as the last entry. Placed in the lower half of the upper half of the draw, they will face the Williams sisters in a first round match on Wednesday.

Renata and Nirupama haven't played together before.

Nirupama Vaidyanathan, 24, is currently ranked 152 in the doubles on the WTA rankings. Her best doubles performance at the Australian Open was in 1998, when she lost in the first round.

Renata Kolbovic, 24, is currently ranked 154 in the doubles on the WTA rankings. Her best doubles performance at the Australian Open was last year, when she too lost in the first round.

In the mixed doubles, Mahesh Bhupathi is playing with Ai Sugiyama of Japan. They are seeded seventh and are placed in the upper half of the draw. In the first round they meet the unseeded pair of David Rikl (CZE) and Karina Habsudova (SVK).

Leander Paes is playing with Lisa Raymond of the United States. The duo is unseeded and will face another unseeded Australian pair -- Todd Perry and Bryanne Stewart in the first round.

Last year, Paes and Raymond were second seed, but lost in the first round itself.