Sania up two places before Wimbledon campaign, Paes slip one spot

New Delhi, June 25 (UNI) Sania Mirza will kickoff her Wimbledon campaign two places higher at world no 44 while Doubles star Leander Paes slipped back to the tenth spot after a one week gap in the latest world tennis rankings released today.

Mahesh Bhupathi, who will partner Sania in the Mixed Doubles, however, has mainatined status quo in the doubles race, remaining static at the 20th spot.

As far as pairings are concerned, Paes and his Czech partner Martin Damm lies at third spot but has a wonderful chance to grab the second spot from the Bahamas-Canadina pair of Mark Knowles and Daniel Nestor.

Paes' estranged partner Bhupathi has more to gain as he along with another Czech Radek Stepanek can zoom their into the seventh spot from the current ninth if the Indo-Czech duo can pull of a victory at the traditional mecca of world tennis. Bhupathi-Spepanek, at 236 points, are 12 points away from eighth placed Czech pair of L Dlouhy and P Vizner and 22 points separates them from seventh placed Israelian duo of J lrich and A Ram.

Paes and Damm are at third spot with 404 points.

Sania can take heart from the fact that she lies a good 36 places higher than her round one opponenet, Yaroslava Shedova, although the 20-year-old Hyderabadi girl will be keen to take revenge for her quarter-final defeat against the Russian at the Bangalore Open in Februray this year.

However, even if she crosses the initial hurdle at her favoured grass court, she is likely to run into another more potent Russian, Nadia Petrova, in the second round, who has just inched her into the top-10, moving two places up to the ninth spot.

UNI