Published by the government of Zimbabwe
Collin Matiza
25 December 2007
Harare — ZIMBABWE'S men's tennis doubles specialist Kevin Ullyett will have a new partner for the 2008 season.
According to the official website of the Association of Tennis Professionals, Ullyett will part ways with Australia's Paul Hanley and will join forces with fellow veteran doubles player Jonas Bjorkman of Sweden.
Ullyett and Bjorkman are set to join forces in 2008 as a number of new marquee Stanford ATP Doubles Rules pairings team-up for the first time.
The Ullyett-Bjorkman tandem will boast more than 1 100 career victories.
Ullyett played his final tournament with Hanley at the Tennis Masters Cup in Shanghai, China, in November.
The duo won six titles in two seasons together.
Ullyett and Hanley clicked right at the start of their partnership, which began at the start of the 2006 season.
Originally halves of long-time partnerships with now-retired compatriots -- Ullyett with fellow Zimbabwean Wayne Black and Hanley with Wayne Arthurs -- the two clinched five titles on three different surfaces to finish their first season together as the number four tandem.
The 2007 season also began positively with a sixth title in Hanley's home town of Sydney in Australia and, for the second year in a row, the team reached the Australian Open semi-finals.
Despite an ensuing title drought, Ullyett and Hanley continued to deliver consistent results, including runner-up finishes at the ATP Masters Series events in Hamburg and Montreal, and the semi-finals at the US Open.
Ullyett (35) has won two Grand Slam doubles titles: the 2001 US Open and 2005 Australian Open (both with Black).
In the Fall the Zimbabwean/Australian duo made the quarter-finals or better in three of four tournaments, including two semi-final runs in Stockholm and Basel.
Meanwhile, the circuit finale in Shanghai in November also marked the end of Bjorkman's partnership with Belarusian Max Mirnyi.
The pair won 10 titles in three seasons together, including Roland Garros in 2005 and 2006, and the 2006 Tennis Masters Cup.
But 2007 was a disappointing year for the former World No. 1 team, which won just one title.
Ullyett and Bjorkman will not join forces until after next month's Australian Open on Melbourne as the 35-year-old Swede remains at home with his wife Petra, who is expecting their second child.
Bjorkman has 675 career doubles wins - the most of any active player.
Ullyett has 434 career doubles wins.
Mirnyi (30) will find himself as the senior partner in his new partnership with 21-year-old Scot Jamie Murray, who is no longer playing with American Eric Butorac.
In other changes, Czech Martin Damm (35) will team up with countryman Pavel Vizner (37), forming a combination that won't be lacking experience.
In 2007, Vizner teamed with 24-year-old countryman Lukas Dlouhy and Damm partnered Indian veteran Leander Paes, with whom he won the 2006 US Open doubles title.
Paes will team-up with Hanley.
In 1999, Paes reached all four Grand Slam finals with fellow Indian Mahesh Bhupathi, winning Roland Garros and Wimbledon.
Paes has won 39 titles and 455 matches during his career.
Hanley has topped 40 match wins a year for the past five seasons and has 20 career titles.
India's Mahesh Bhupathi and Mark Knowles of the Bahamas will begin their new partnership during the Australian swing after injury prevented Bhupathi from teaming up with Knowles as planned after the 2007 US Open.
Knowles ended his long-term partnership with Daniel Nestor of Canada after Flushing Meadows, although the pair reunited once in November, when they won the Tennis Masters Cup in Shanghai.
And for the teams which are sticking together, World No. 1 team Bob and Mike Bryan of the United States, who in 2007 won the Stanford ATP Doubles Race for the third consecutive year and for the fourth time in the past five years, will again be the team to beat in 2008.
Last season, the Bryans won a career-best 11 ATP titles, including the Australian Open and five ATP Masters Series tournaments.
Also sticking together in 2008 are Simon Aspelin and Julian Knowle, who in their first season together won the US Open and reached the Tennis Masters Cup final.
Wimbledon champions Arnaud Clement and Michael Llodra remain together, as do Israelis Jonathan Erlich and Andy Ram, who won their first Masters Series title this year in Cincinnati, United States.
Nestor and Nenad Zimonjic, who teamed-up after the US Open, will begin their first full season together.
The duo ended last year by reaching the Paris Masters final and, in the prior week, winning St. Petersburg.
In a separate development, Ullyett will join three other Grand Slam winners at next year's South African Airways Open tournament.
The tournament will be played at Selbourne Park Tennis Club in East London from February 12-17.
According to reports from Johannesburg, Ullyett will be among four Grand Slam winners who have entered this event.
Heading the list is 2002 Australian Open champion Thomas Johansson of Sweden, along with compatriot Bjorkman who is a nine-times doubles Grand Slam champion.
Joining them will be 2005 Wimbledon doubles champion Wesley Moodie of South Africa and Ullyett, the 2005 Australian Open doubles winner.
Add to that Austria's Stefan Koubek, who reached the semi-finals last year, and last year's winner and runner-up, Mathieu Montcourt of France and South Africa's Rik de Voest respectively, and the organisers expect a pretty compelling line-up.
Ullyett is one of the most committed players on the ATP Tour and thoroughly deserved his Australian Open title in 2005, which he won with fellow Zimbabwean Black, who is now retired.
It was not his first Grand Slam title, however, as in 1992 he teamed-up with Slovak Daniela Hantuchova to win the mixed doubles title at Melbourne Park.
Ullyett is expected to fly to East London after competing in the first Grand Slam of the 2008 season -- the Australian Open -- which is set to run from January 14-27 in Melbourne.
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