Russia's Yelena Likhovtseva and Alina Zhidkova to Play Against Each Other in Pairs at Australian Open

At the Australian open tennis championships, Yelena Likhovtseva of Russia and Kara Black of Zimbabwe will play against Russia's Alina Zhidkova and South Africa's Nannie de Villers on Friday. This match will take place on the courts of Melbourne Park as part of the second round of Australian Open.

The Likhovtseva/Black pair is seeded No. 4 at this tournament.

Curiously enough, in a first-round competition the Russian and the Zimbabwean beat another Russian - Yevgeniya Kulikovskaya - who was paired with Tatiana Puchek from Belarus.

In another Friday meet, the No.3 pair at the Australian championship, Yelena Dementyeva/Jeannet Gusarova /Russia/Slovakia/, will take on a Hungarian-Swiss duet, Petra Mandula/Emmanuelle Gagliardi.

Altogether the second round of the women's pairs of Australian Open was reached by 7 paired combinations including Russian women. Apart from the above-mentioned pairs, the second round of this year's first Grand Slam tournament will see Svetlana Kuznetsova playing with Martina Navratilova from the US, Nadezhda Petrova with Conchita Martinez /Spain/, Yelena Bovina with Belgium's Justine Henin-Ardenne and Maria Sharapova with French Marion Bartoli.