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Paes-Bhupati go down to second seeds

Top seeds Mark Woodforde and Todd Woodbridge of Australia struggled through consecutive tiebreakers before downing the fourth-seeded American duo of Rick Leach and Jonathan Stark at the $500,000 ATP Tour World Doubles Championship in Hartford, Connecticut.

The Australian duo won the first set, 6-3, then split a pair of tiebreakers -- 4-7 and 7-5 -- to narrowly advance to the third round of the round-robin competition.

Meanwhile, second seeds Jacco Eltingh and Paul Haarhuis of the Netherlands moved one step closer to a date with the "Woodies," defeating the fifth-seeded Indian duo Mahesh Bhupathi and Leander Paes. The Duth pair won the final three games of the first set and had little trouble in the second set en route to a 6-3, 6-2 victory.

Sixth seeds Alex O'Brien of America and Canadian Sebastian Lareau defeated the American pairing of Donald Johnson and Francisco Montan, 6-3, 3-6, 6-3, after losing to Americans Rick Leach and Jonathan Stark in three sets on Wednesday.

Ferreira and Galbraith, meanwhile, edged seventh seeds Mark Knowles of the Bahamas and Canadian Daniel Nestor, 6-2, 6-7 (6-8), 7-5 for their first victory in the tournament. The winning pair had, yesterday, gone down to the fifth-seeded Indian tandem of Bhupathi and Paes, 7-5, 6-4.