After the final stumble at the Wimbledon, Mahesh Bhupathi and Max Mirnyi are gearing up to defend the US Open doubles tennis title.
"We are looking forward to it," Bhupathi said of the year's final Grand Slam, which begins August 25.
Bhupathi and Belarussian Mirnyi were seeded No. 1 at Wimbledon last month but lost to Australian Todd Woodbridge and Jonas Bjorkman of Sweden in a closely contested final. The title was Woodbridge's 14th career Grand Slam and a record eighth at Wimbledon.
Bhupathi and Mirnyi will kick-start their defence of the US Open crown with the Tennis Masters Series, starting on Monday in Montreal, Canada, where they have once again been top seeded.
The Wimbledon champions are seeded fourth while Leander Paes and David Rikl are seeded five in the bottom half of the draw of the $2.45 million hard court event.
The teams of America's Bryan brothers, Bob and Mike, and the Bahamas's Mark Knowles and home boy Daniel Nestor, are the second and third seeds respectively.
"Hopefully, three weeks of tough matches will get us ready to defend our title at the Open," said Bhupathi, who will be playing the next week's Masters event in Cincinnati and the International Series event in Long Island, New York, the following week before the start of the Grand Slam.
