By Philip James
Jamie Murray and Colin Fleming begin their Australian open doubles campaign against Michael Kohlmann and Jarkko Nieminen on Wednesday.
The pair kick off what should be an exciting men’s doubles draw for the Brits, which sees Jamie Delgado, Ken Skupski, Dominic Inglot and Wimbledon Champion Jonathan Marray in action.
Fleming, who’s regular doubles partner Ross Hutchins was diagnosed with cancer earlier this year, teams up with Murray for the second time this season.
Together Fleming and Hutchins won three ATP titles, played for the GB Davis Cup team and finished as alternates for the ATP 2012 World Tour Finals.
Fleming and Murray began the 2013 season playing the Brisbane International together where they won their first match before being knocked out in the quarter finals.
While Murray watched his younger brother Andy win the singles title at Brisbane, Fleming moved on to win the Heineken Open in Auckland with Brazilian Bruno Soares.
Fleming will be looking to continue his good form and develop a successful partnership with Murray who has never settled since ending his early career partnership with Eric Butorac.
Though Finn Nieminen is a singles specialist, Kohlmann of Germany holds a doubles ranking of 93 will provide a stern test for Fleming and Murray, ranked 26 and 78 respectively.
Another British player trying to cement a new partnership is Marray, who last year, with Dane Frederik Nielsen, won Wimbledon and reached the semi-finals of the ATP World Tour Finals.
While Nielsen is also competing in the doubles he has made it clear that he wishes to focus on singles, with Marray teaming up with Brazilian Andre Sa instead.
The pair, seeded sixteenth, face the Slovakian duo of Lukas Lacko and Igor Zelenay in round one.
In the same quarter of the draw are the all British team of Delgado and Skupski, who will square off against the Poles Tomasz Bednarek and Jerzy Janowicz when their first round match is scheduled.
Inglot , the only Brit in the top half of the draw, renews his partnership with Filipino Treat Conrad Huey to take on fourth seeds Max Mirnyi of Belarus and Horia Tecau of Romania.