New Delhi, Jul 15: India's estranged duo of Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi have been seeded number one in the 525,000 dollars Indianapolis Tennis Championships in United States this week.

This would be their second and the last pre-Olympic ATP event together after the two participated in a pre-Wimbledon grass court tourney in Holland where they finished runners-up. In the opening round, the 'Indian Express' will take on wild cards Daniel Nestor and Frederic Niemeyer of Canada tomorrow. The runners-up of the Hall of Fame Players Cup, Rohan Bopanna and Aisam-ul-Haq Quereshi will also feature in the tournament.

However, the Indo-Pak duo will have a tough challenge at hands as they lock horns with fourth seeds Igor Kunitsyn and Dmitry Tursunov of Russia.

Meanwhile, India's top ranked women's player Sania Mirza, who has had a disappointing grass-court season so far, will also start her hard-court campaign at the 600,000 dollars WTA Bank of the West Classic in Stanford, United States.

In her opening match of the tier-II event, Sania will take on the British qualifier Anne Keothavong.

But the road ahead is not easy for Sania, who has been battling injuries and poor form recently, as, if she manages to advance to the second round, she will face sixth seed Marion Bartoli of France.

The 21-year-old Indian will pair up with Russia's Anna Chakvetadze in the doubles and the duo will start their campaign against the Czech pair of Eva Hrdinova and Vladimira Uhlirova.

UNI