Woodies head doubles field

Wednesday, November 19 1997

Woodies head doubles field

AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE

HARTFORD, November 18: Defending champions Todd Woodbridge and Mark Woodforde will be the top seeds in the eight-team field for the ATP World Doubles Championships that begin here on Wednesday. The Woodies will make their seventh consecutive appearance in the $ 500,000 event, matching the record run of finals trips by John McEnroe and Peter Fleming from 1978 to 1984.

The Aussies have reached the championship match four of the past five years, winning in 1992 and 1996 and losing in 1993 and 1994. The Woodies have already sealed a third consecutive year-end No 1 rating.

This year, Woodforde and Woodbridge won the Australian Open and a record fifth consecutive Wimbledon doubles title.

Dutchmen Jacco Eltingh and Paul Haarhuis will make their fifth visit to the event as the second seeds. They beat the Woodies for the 1993 crown but are 8-6 overall in their rivalry with the Aussie pair.

This year, Eltingh and Haarhuis have won six titles, sharing the tour lead with the Indian duo of Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi, who are seeded fifth and assured of India's best doubles season in ATP history.

Paes and Bhupathi went 15-0 during a five-week run in April and May and have taken titles in Montreal, New Haven, Beijing and Singapore since then, jumping to fourth in ATP doubles ratings.

Canada's Sebastien Lareau and Alex O'Brien of the United States, who lost to the Woodies in last year's final here, are seeded sixth, one place above Lareau's compatriot Daniel Nestor and Mark Knowles of the Bahamas.

South Africa's Ellis Ferreira and Pat Galbraith of the United States are seeded third, one spot ahead of the US duo of Jonathan Stark and Rick Leach. Another US pair, Don Johnson and Francisco Montana, is seeded eighth. Johnson and Montana came in for Daniel Vacek and Yevgeny Kafelnikov, who despite qualifying have chosen to skip the event, just as they did last year. Kafelnikov last week played and reached the final of the ATP Singles at Hanover. Round-robin pairings for the event will be drawn on Tuesday.