Dreams can masquerade as facts . . . .

Most of the times, facts are far more fascinating than fiction. Yet, facts are hard to come by these days despite the best of professionals doing the job. That is because they forget the basics, and get carried away. Or, they are simply careless.

Otherwise, how else does one explain the Barclays ATP Tour World Finals that kick starts at the O2 Arena in London on Monday, featuring the top eight players in singles, and top eight teams in doubles, not giving the basic groupings in the doubles.

The teams have been listed only in the schedule both in the dedicated website as well as the ATP website. Six pairs have been listed as belonging to group ‘A’, among eight. Now, one is forced to do the guessing game.

Well, if you get exhausted looking for the fact, possibly hidden somewhere, then you stumble on another alarming point, that masquerades as a fact.

In the past champions column, it has been listed that Bhupathi and Bopanna had finished runner-up to the former World No.1 pair, the Woodies, Mark Woodforde and Todd Woodbridge of Australia, in 1996 ! On a lighter vein, you never knew that Bopanna had played the villain as far back as in 1996.

Yes, we do remember that Mahesh Bhupathi and Leander Paes had made the final on their maiden appearance in the World doubles championship in 1997 at Hartford, Connecticut. We also remember that Bhupathi and Bopanna had finished runner-up to Marcel Granollers and Marc Lopez of Spain in the last edition in London, when the duo had saved a matchpoint to beat Leander Paes and Radek Stepanek of the Czech Republic 4-6, 6-1, 12-10 in the semifinals.

Well, Stepanek has already announced that it would be his mission this time to get the elusive World Doubles trophy for Leander Paes, with whom he won the US Open.

Paes and Stepanek, ranked seventh in the team race, will be opening their campaign against the second best team in the world this season, Alexander Peya of Austria and Bruno Soares of Brazil, on Tuesday. Peya and Soares had finished runner-up to the Bryans in the Paris Masters.

I presume the groupings, going by the simple idea of 1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8 figuring in two different pools.

Luckily, by our guessing game, the defending champions, Granollers and Lopez figure in group ‘B’, as against the world No.1 pair of Bob Bryan and Mike Bryan of the US, with an imposing 13365 points, being given the pride of place in group ‘A’. The Bryans will start against the third-ranked Ivan Dodig of Croatia and Marcelo Melo of Brazil on Tuesday.

Granollers and Lopez, ranked fourth, will open their campaign against another Spanish team of David Marrero and Fernando Verdasco, on Monday.

Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi of Pakistan and Jean-Julien Rojer of the Netherlands will actually inaugurate the doubles competition with their match against the eighth-ranked Mariusz Frystenberg and Marcin Matkowski of Poland, on Monday.

The top two teams from each group make it to the semifinals, after the league. In case of tie of points, there is an elaborate method to help the right teams qualify for the knock-out, on better victory quotient etc.

The 40-year-old Leander Paes had kept a low profile after winning the US Open, and thus should be hungry to have a good start and get ready to pin the elusive title.

Each team is assured a participation fee of $71,000. Each round-robin win will be worth $27,000, and the semifinal victory will fetch $70,500, and the final victory will be worth $140,000. An undefeated doubles champion will be presented $362,500 as against $1.92 million for the singles champion, in the season-ending competition that offers a total prize purse of $6 million.

Each round-robin win will also get 200 ATP points while the semifinals and final victory will be worth 400 and 500 points respectively. An undefeated champion will get the maximum 1500 ATP points, as against the 2000 points awarded to the Grand Slam champions.

Yuki Bhambri fighting hard in the final of the $50K Challenger in Australia

Trust Yuki Bhambri to fight it out. The former World No.1 junior led 6-7(13), 6-3, 4-2 against the top-seeded Bradley Klahn of the US when play was abandoned owing to rain, in the $50,000 Challenger tournament in Traralgon, Australia, on Sunday. Play had been interrupted earlier as well owing to rain, and will resume on Monday.

The 277^th ranked Yuki, seeded eighth has given himself the opening to go for the jugular when play resumes against the 123^rd American on the morrow.

The champion will get $7200 and 80 ATP points, while the runner-up will get $4240 and 48 ATP points.

Shweta Rana loses doubles final in Egypt

The second-seeded Shweta Rana and Giulia Bruzzone of Italy were beaten 5-7, 6-4, 10-5 by the third seeded Pauline Payet of France and Valeria Prosperi of Italy in the doubles final of the $10,000 ITF women’s tennis tournament in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt.

It was her sixth doubles final loss this season for the 20-year-old Delhi girl who is coached by Todd Clark and supported by Amira Foods. Shweta had recently clinched the National women’s doubles title with the seasoned Rushmi Chakravarthi.

Ankita Raina loses first qualifying round in the $125K tournament in Chinese Taipei

The country’s No.1 woman tennis player, the 301^st ranked Ankita Raina was beaten 6-3, 6-1 by the fifth-seeded Paula Kania of Poland in the first qualifying round of the $125,000 WTA Challenger tournament in Chinese Taipei.

Ankita has got a doubles entry in the main draw with Alla Tomljanovic of Croatia. The duo will face the second-seeded Taipei team of Hao-Ching Chan and Yung-Jan Chan in the first round.

Pranjala Yadlapalli, Simran Kaur Sethi, etc. make it to the Asia-Oceania junior event in Korea

While the boys have stayed away, the leading Indian junior girls, Pranjala Yadlapalli, Simran Kaur Sethi, Dhruthi Venugopal and Vasanti Shinde have ventured to the GB1 Asia-Oceania ITF junior tennis tournament in Korea.