Mahesh, Leander get byes

Monte Carlo: Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi, with their respective partners, advanced to the men’s doubles second round at Monte Carlo Masters after getting first-round byes.

While Paes has teamed up with Czech Lukas Dlouhy, Bhupathi has combined with Bahamas’ Mark Knowles in the 2,750,000euro clay-court event. Paes and Dlouhy, seeded third, will take on the winners of the match between Czechs Tomas Berdych and Frantisek Cermak and Spaniards Albert Montanes and Tommy Robredo.

Fourth seeds Bhupathi and Knowles, meanwhile, will be up against the winners of the match between Fernando Verdasco and Feliciano Lopez versus Marat Safin and Igor Andreev.

Vaughan blow

London: Former England skipper Michael Vaughan suffered a setback in his attempts to force his way back into the Ashes reckoning when he made just 12 playing for the MCC against county champions Durham.

The 34-year-old is determined to claim the number three spot for the coming series against the West Indies and Australia, but with the squad due to be named next weekend, time is running out.

Ireland win

Johannesburg: Ireland is on the verge of qualifying for the 2011 World Cup after beating United Arab Emirates by eight wickets on Monday. Fayyaz Ahmed scored 63 for UAE but his team stumbled from 3/3 to 38/6 before being bowled out for 133 in the 40th over, with Regan West taking 3/39.

Top seed out

Calcutta: Top seed Chinese Li Yuan was thrashed 16-66, 18-70, 14-62 by Thailand’s Yuttapop Pakpoj in group A of the Rewale group Asian Under 21 Snooker championship at the P.Y.C Gymkhana in Pune Monday.

Thai successes were scripted by Poramin, in group C and Noppom Saegkham in group D.

Poramin Danjirakul beat India’s Vivek Chopra 3-2 in group C, while Noppom defeated Alammar Abdulrahman of Saudi Arabia 3-1. India’s Aditya Deshpande laid low Sri Lankan opponent Ryan Somara 46-10, 50-49, 48-47.

Ferrari move

Milan: Ferrari team manager Luca Baldisserri will not attend Sunday’s Chinese Grand Prix and his track responsibilities have been handed to engineer Chris Dyer, the struggling world champions said on Monday. Ferrari are without a point after the first two races of the season and Baldisserri, criticised in the Italian media for his decision-making at the Malaysian Grand Prix earlier this month, will stay behind to work in the factory.

Junior camp

Calcutta: A national preparatory residential table tennis training camp for junior girls will be held between April 15 to May 5 in Shantiniketan, Bengal. All leading junior players of the country will participate in the camp. Shreya Ghosh, Camelia Seal and Anushree Hazra will represent Bengal in the camp.

Staff Reporter & Agencies