Teams line up for World Doubles finals
Teams line up for World Doubles finals
JAKARTA (JP): New teams come to blows with old as the race begins for the eight spots in the US$1.3 million ATP World Doubles Championship here in November.
The American-Australian pairing of Trevor Kronemann and David Machperson sound a note of warning to the established teams when they won their second tour title in the Japan Open two weeks ago for a surprising fourth place in the latest ATP World Doubles rankings, issued on Monday.
"We didn't expect to win because there are so many good teams on the tour," Machperson said after his victory in Tokyo. "Our goal is to qualify for Jakarta but it is too early to speculate," he added.
Jakarta will host the year-end tournament for the second successive year at the Senayan indoor tennis stadium.
The Canadian-American partnership of Grant Connell and Patrick Galbraith, two-time Wimbledon runners-up, set the pace in the early race, as it did in the last two seasons, after grabbing three titles. Connell brought his doubles victories to four when he won the XL Bermuda Open with American Todd Martin last week.
Connell and Galbraith, who finished as world number one team in 1992, lost to the Dutch duo of Paul Haarhuis and Jacco Eltingh in last year's World Doubles semifinals.
Coming a close second are the American Davis Cup team and Australian Open winners Jared Palmer and Richey Reneberg. Palmer narrowly missed making last year's championship with then partner Patrick McEnroe.
Wimbledon champions and two-time World Doubles runners-up Todd Woodbridge and Mark Woodforde are trailing in third place, followed by the Canadian-Bahama doubles of Daniel Nestor and Mark Knowles. Eltingh and Haarhuis, who won the Philadelphia Open for their first title of the year last February, are fifth.
Defending champions Jonas Bjorkman and Jan Appell remain well out of the spotlight. Making their second semifinal appearance of the year in last week's Hong Kong Open, the Swedish Davis Cup heroes languish at 30th place. The two also staged an all-Swede singles semifinal in Hong Kong last week.
The teams will have further opportunities to move ahead in the rankings this week as the ATP Tour moves on to Monte Carlo and Seoul. (amd)