November 23: Title favourite Leander Paes faces a potentially dangerous opponent, and all but one of the six Indians -- including Mahesh Bhupathi -- find themselves in the tough top half of the main draw in the Famous Grouse Association of Tennis Professional (ATP) Challenger.

Though the main action gets under way at the Maharashtra State Lawn Tennis Association (MSLTA) courts tomorrow, Paes and Bhupathi are expected to play only on Tuesday evening -- just hours after arriving in the city from Hartford in the wee hours of the morning. Jetlag and high expectations apart, Paes will also have to overcome a difficult rival in South African David Nainkin.

It was Nainkin who thwarted Paes in the final qualifying round of the 1996 Wimbledon. Paes, nevertheless, got into the main draw, where he lost to Great Britain's Mark Petchey.

Though Paes, ranked 114 in the world, finds himself a clear 27 points higher than second seed Oleg Ogordov (Uzbekistan), the latter proved his prowess by beating the Indian quite emphatically in the final of the Chennai Challenger last year.

Paes is not under pressure of defending important ATP points, but it remains to be seen how well he can sustain his powers of motivation in back-to-back $ 25,000 Challengers in Mumbai and Ahmedabad (Dec 1-6) after peaking in the highly-competitive field of the $ 500,000 Phoenix ATP World Doubles Championship.

The pressure on Bhupathi is relatively less than the higher-ranked Paes. Bhupathi is 221 on the ATP computer and has drawn Great Britain's Luke Milligan -- ranked 294 in the world.

If Bhupathi clears the first round, then he will face either third-seeded Andrei Merinov, who won the 1997 Indian Satellite, or Great Britain's Martin Lee, the junior world No 1.

The four other Indians in the main draw are all beneficiaries of wild cards. Nitin Kirtane is drawn to face eighth-seeded Daniele Musa while his cousin Sandeep Kirtane takes Gouichi Motomura. A victory against the Japanese will pit Sandeep against the winner of the Paes-Nainkin match.

Vasudev Reddy meets qualifier Martin Hromec, while in the bottom half of the draw, young Harsh Mankad faces Dmitriy Tomashevich -- a player who beat Paes in successive first round encounters in Uzbekistan.

The top half of the draw also has 19-year-old Vladimir Voltchkov (Belarussia), who won the junior Wimbledon last year.

Except for Delhi's Vishal Uppal, none of the 19 Indians who inundated the 32-man singles qualifying draw, made any impression. Only Uppal made it to the final qualifying round after beating Japanese Thomas Shimada 6-3, 2-6, 6-3 but fell at the last hurdle to Vadim Kutsenko (Uzbekistan) 2-6, 1-6.With Paes and Bhupathi deciding not to enter the doubles, Indian hopes in the paired event rests on the Kirtane cousins, Sandeep and Nitin. The Pune lads have been given wild cards, as have the Vasudev Reddy-Anand Radhakrishnan and Gaurav Natekar-Vikram Venkataraghavan partnerships.

Seedings: 1 Leander Paes (India), 2 Oleg Ogordov (Uzbekistan), 3 Andrei Merinov (Russia), 4 Eyal Erlich (Israel), 5 Orlin Stanoytchev (Bulgaria), 6 Frederic Fontang (France), 7 Eyal Ran (Israel), 8 Daniele Musa (Italy).

RESULTS

Final qualifying round: Vadim Kutsenko (Uzbekistan) bt Vishal Uppal (India) 6-2, 6-1, Dmitriy Tomashevich (Uzbekistan) bt Steven Randjelovic (Austria) 6-2, 6-2, Jamie Delgado (Great Britain) bt Takao Suzuki (Japan) 6-4, 6-3, Martin Hromec (Czechoslovakia) bt Barry Cowan (Great Britain) 6-3, 4-6, 6-3.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.