Paes-Bhupathi may run into Woods at the Open

New delhi, august 26: The Indian duo of Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi will be facing a possible match with the Woodies Mark Woodforde a...

New delhi, august 26: The Indian duo of Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi will be facing a possible match with the Woodies Mark Woodforde and Todd Woodbridge in the third round of the US Open itself, according to the just-released doubles draw.

For the Australians, the top seeds here and the World’s most successful double combination ever, this will be a sentimental Slam, as it will be their last together. Woodforde is retiring from professional tennis after the Sydney Olympics in September. The crack Indian duo will face the South American combine of Brazilian Jamie Oncins and Argentine Daniel Orsanic in the first round and if they get through, which they should quite easily, they may have a not-so-easy second round too. They could face 16th seeds Tomas Carbonell (Spain) and Martin Garcia (Argentina). Leander’s former partner Dutchman Jan Siemerink has teamed up with Macedonian Aleksander Kitinov, while Mark Knowles of the Bahamas, who was due to play with Mahesh here, will play with American Justin Gimelstob.

They have a tough opener against third-seeded Americans Alex O’Brien and Jared Palmer. O’Brien had teamed up with Canadian Sebastien Lareau to beat Leander and Mahesh for the title last year. The duo then broke up to play with countrymen as this is Olympic year. Lareau and fellow Canadian Daniel Nestor are seeded seventh. The second seeds, Dutchman Paul Haarhuis and Aussie Sandon Stolle will face Swedes Aspelin and Landsberg in their opener.Meanwhile, Paes and Bhupathi don’t seem to be doing too badly in their first event together after nine months of separation. In the last match on Stadium Court at the Hamlet Cup in Long Island on Friday, the ace Indian duo hung on to come through against the World No. 16 duo of Simon Aspelin and Johan Landsberg.

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Leander and Mahesh, who beat the Swedish combine 7-6 (5), 7-6 (6), will now take on a tough twosome in fourth-seeded Americans Jan-Michael Gambill and Scott Humphries. The latter beat Argentines Pablo Albano and Lucas Arnold 6-7 (3) 6-3 6-4 in an earlier match on the day.

After beating wildcards Juan Cerda and Rodriguez Grille in the first round on Tuesday, Leander and Mahesh had an unusually long wait to play the second round, the quarter-finals of the 16-team event.

Veterans Jonathan Stark of the US and Zimbabwean Kevin Ulyett will meet the second seeded Czech-Slovak combine of Martin Damm and Dominic Hrbaty in the second semi-final.

Algerian-French artist’s work vandalised at Kochi art gallery over ‘obscenity’ allegations

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Algerian-French artist Hanan Benammar's linocut prints were vandalised by two artists at an international exhibition in Kochi. The exhibition, curated by Anushka Rajendran and Damian Christinger, was organised by the Kerala Lalithakala Akademi and opened on October 18.

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