The Hindu : Bhupathi-Woodbridge duo brings tourney to life

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jan 02, 2003

Sport

Sport - Tennis

Bhupathi-Woodbridge duo brings tourney to life

By Nirmal Shekar

Todd Woodbrige (foreground) lunges for a forehand return as partner Mahesh Bhupathi watches during their encounter against Mark Philippoussis and Justin Gimelstob in the Tata Open in Chennai on Wednesday. — Photo: M. Moorthy

Chennai Jan. 1. A quiet casting revolution has taken place. The script has been radically re-written. The supporting cast will play the lead roles.

And the main actors will step in when asked to, quietly say their piece and depart!

Welcome, then, to Tata Open 2003. As the new year dawned, so indeed did the new reality in Indian tennis.

So, both the entree and the main course came in the form of doubles matches on Wednesday, and the man who jumped 110 places in 2002 to become the first Asian since Vijay Amritraj to make the top 20 in the ATP rankings — Paradorn Srichaphan — featured as something of a dessert.

Surely, this gives a new dimension to sports marketing. While few will argue against scheduling doubles matches involving Indians on the centre court, it becomes a case of misplaced priorities when they are offered prime-time feature slots on the main stage.

This is a bit like trying to sell Madonna as Mozart. The heroics of Mahesh Bhupathi and Leander Paes, who won four titles here, have certainly captured the imagination of fans in this tennis-loving city.

But no real connoisseur of the sport will confuse doubles success with singles glory.

But, then, even on the opening day, the centre court programme was rather unimaginative, to say the least.

There were three Indians in the main draw in singles. All three of them were asked to play on the same day.

And Leander Paes, the country's finest, had arrived only late on Saturday night and would have certainly preferred a Tuesday start. He ran the fourth seeded Juan Ignacio Chela very, very close on Monday but if he had had an extra day to practice here, maybe he would pulled off an upset.

Then again, no matter what the critic or the connoisseur might believe, doubles does produce a lot of excitement and the crowd was thoroughly involved in the two centre court matches of the evening featuring Indian interest.

As doubles teams go, it can't get much better than Mahesh Bhupathi and Todd Woodbridge, the top seeds here. Between them, they have 100 titles (Woodbridge has 74 and Bhupathi 26).

On the other side of the net were two big men with huge serves. Mark Philippoussis and Justin Gimelstob may not have played a lot together but put them alongside each other on a tennis court and they can trouble the best in the business, even the finest of doubles specialists like Bhupathi and Woodbridge.

In a thrill-a-minute contest in which the wild card pair of Philippoussis and Gimelstob started wonderfully well, the Indian and the Australian doubles legend used their experience and skills rather well when pushed to the wall to post a 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 victory.

Philippoussis and Gimelstob broke Woodbridge in only the third game of the match and wrapped up the first set comfortably. In the second, Gimelstob lost serve in the eighth game and Bhupathi served out the set.

By then the biggest crowd of the week had come urgently alive and the pedigree pair of Bhupathi and Woodbridge responded with their best tennis in the decider.

Philippoussis, a touch distracted by a pair of questionable line calls, lost serve in the opening game. But the critical one was the sixth in which Bhupathi came back from 0-40 down to hold to 4-2. Riding on that momentum, the Indo-Australian pair broke Gimelstob in the next game before Woodbridge served out the match.

``For a first round it was the toughest draw we could get. They both serve really big. But once we broke for the first time, we had the momentum with us,'' said Woodbridge.

``First match of the year is always tough. I was not serving very well but in that game when I was 0-40 I came up with my best,'' said Bhupathi.

Earlier, the Amritraj cousins, Prakash and Stephen — Prakash is the son of Vijay Amritraj and Stephen is the son of Anand Amritraj — a wild card pairing, promised a lot as they fought back from a set and 0-2 down against the experienced Germans Karsten Braasch and Rainer Schuettler.

With the crowd behind them, the two youngsters started firing from 0-2 in the second set to win five games in a row. Then, serving for the set, Stephen was broken. The momentum was gone.

But when Braasch — whose service action resembles a python uncoiling to reach out for its breakfast — served next to stay in the set, the Amritraj boys had two setpoints. They would let go of one more in the 12th game before the Germans went on to dominate the tie-break.

Out in the countryside — the outside courts — Tomas Behrend of Germany, a qualifier, beat Albert Portas of Spain 7-6 (7-4), 6-1 and Sargis Sargsian from Armenia upset the eighth seeded Spaniard Albert Montanes 6-4, 6-3.

The results:

Singles (second round): Thomas Behrend (Ger) bt Albert Portas 7-6 (7-4), 6-1; Sargis Sargsian (Arm) bt 8-Albert Montanes (Esp) 6-4, 6-3.

Doubles (quarterfinals): Frantisek Cermak and Leos Friedl (4), Czech Republic, def. Guillermo Canas and Martin Garcia, Argentina, 6-3, 6-3.

Doubles (first round): Karsten Braasch & Rainer Schuettler (Ger) bt Prakash Amritraj & Stephen Amritraj (USA) 6-4, 7-6 (7-4); Julian Knowle (Aut) & Michael Kohlmann (Ger) bt Jean-Rene Lisnard & Michael Llorda (Fra) 6-4, 6-4; 1-Todd Woodbridge (Aus) & Mahesh Bhupathi (Ind) bt Justin Gimelstob (U.S.) & Mark Philippoussis (Aus) 4-6, 6-3, 6-2.

Tuesday's results:

Singles (first round): Karol Kucera (Svk) bt Justin Gimelstob (U.S.) 3-6, 7-6 (7-3), 6-3; 2-Paradorn Srichaphan (Tha) bt Jan Vacek (Cze) 7-5, 6-2; Cecil Mamit (U.S.) bt 7-Lars Burgsmuller (Ger) 6-0, 6-3.

Doubles (first round): Frantisek Cermak & Leos Friedl (Cze) bt Andrei Pavel & Sargis Sargsian 6-2, 6-4.

Thursday's matches

Centre court: 5 p.m. start: Guillermo Canas (Arg) v Jiri Vanek (Cze); Rainer Schuettler (Ger) v Mark Philippoussis (Aus); Simon Aspelin (Swe)/Jim Thomas (US) v Leander Paes (Ind)/David Rikl (Cze).

Court 1: 5 p.m.:

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