By IANS
Melbourne : The Indian and Australian cricket teams may be engaged in a war of words, but on the tennis court Leander Paes is hoping to strike a successful partnership with Australia’s Paul Hanley at the Australian Open.
Meanwhile, Sania Mirza will also be partnering an Australia, Alicia Molik, in women’s doubles. In mixed doubles, Mahesh Bhupathi will play with Sania.
While fifth seed Indo-Aussie pair of Paes and Hanley will be starting their campaign against Luis Horna of Peru and Stefan Koubek of Austria, Sania and Molik, seeded sixth, will play all-German unseeded combination of Eleni Daniilidou and Jasmin Woehr in the first round of the women’s doubles.
Meanwhile, Paes’ estranged partner Mahesh Bhupathi will team with Mark Knowles of Bahamas. Seeded sixth Bhupathi and Knowles will face unseeded Russian-German Mikhail Youzhny of Russia and Mischa Zverev of Germany in the opening round.
Another Indian in the fray will be Rohan Bopanna and he will play with Rajeev Ram, an American of Indian origin. They will be up against James Auckland of Britain and Sam Querrey of U.S.
If both Paes-Hanley and Bopanna-Ram get past the first round, they will clash in the second round.