Ten top Indian players, including Davis Cuppers Yuki Bhambri and Somdev Devvarman, along with Saketh Myneni, Ramkumar Ramnathan, Sanam Singh and Junior Wimbledon doubles champion Sumit Nagal will be seen in action at the MSLTA organised US$50,000 KPIT ATP Challenger, which will be played at the Shiv Chattrapati Mhalunge Balewadi Tennis Complex from October 24-31.
Standing (from left to right), Sunder Iyer, Hon. Secretary, MSLTA, Kishor Patil, Chairman Organising Committee, Bharat Oza, President, MSLTA and Sharad Kanamwar, former President and Secretary, MSLTA
The event which offer a total prize money of $50000 (Rs 33 lakhs) is being sponsored by Pune-based Software giant KPIT. The tournament to be conducted in Pune for the second successive year is being jointly organized by the Maharashtra State Lawn tennis Association (MSLTA) and the Pune Metropolitan District Tennis Association (PMDTA), in association with the Directorate of Sports and Youth Services Govt. of Maharashtra, this was announced during a press conference in Mumbai on Monday.
The organizers also announced the names of the players who have been awarded the four wild cards for the main draw. They include Sumit Nagal, Vishnu Vardhan, Balaji and Aryan Goveas from Maharashtra.
Players from different countries will be vying for the top honours. They include James Ward of England (a member of the British Davis Cup team) and Yanick Mertens of Belgium (a member of the Belgian Davis Cup team). Both, Britain and Belgium will contest the 2015 Davis Cup finals. Former World No. 65 Evegeny Donskoy of Russia and Adrian Menendez-Maceiras of Spain are some of the other players who have confirmed their participation.
MSLTA President Bharat Oza addressing a press conference mentioned that the purpose of holding this event was to provide an opportunity to Indian players to participate in a major tournament. “By conducting such higher ranking tournaments we can give wild cards to Indian players. This provides our Indian players an direct entry into the main draw,” said Oza.
“It will also be a great opportunity for Indian players to pick up valuable ATP points. If players like Yuki and Somdev do well here they can improve their rankings and start the New Year on a high. Yuki, who has broken into the top 100 in world tennis will have an opportunity to try and remain in the top 100 bracket,” added Oza, who is also the Hon. Secretary of the All India Tennis Association.
Kishor Patil, Chairman of the Organising Committee, said: “This event is the biggest in Maharashtra and one of the best in the country. The objective is to give Indian players a level-playing field in a world class event and an opportunity to compete on home terrain. It would also help our players get noticed which would further create awareness of the game in the country,” said Patil.
The KPIT Challenger will offer US$ 7,200 (Rs 4,71,000) and 80 ATP points to the winner, while the runner-up gets US$ 4,053 (Rs 2,65,000) and 55 ATP points. The losing semi-finalists will get US$ 2,216 (Rs1,45,000 each) and 33 points, while the quarter-finalists get US$ 1,267 (Rs 83,000 each) and 17 points. The first round winner gets US$ 760 (Rs 50,000 each) and 8 ATP points, the Main Draw player get US$ 444 (Rs 29,000 each) and 0 points. However the qualifier for the Main draw gets 5 ATP points.
The qualifying rounds will be played on Saturday, October 24 and Sunday, October 25, while the main draw of the event will get underway from Monday, October 26. Italian Roberto Ranieri, who was also the referee for the Rome ATP will be the ATP Supervisor for the event, while Riccardo Ragazzini of Italy, Nitin Kannamwar, Saibal Banerjee, Abhishek Mukherjee have been designated as umpires for the event.
The semi-finals and the finals of the event will also be telecast live on Doordarshan, while live scores will be available on the official websites www.kpitatp.com ,www.punekhel.com or the ATP/WTA App.
List of the Indian participants : Yuki Bhambri (IND), Saketh Myneni (IND) 168, Somdev Devvarman (IND) 178, Ramkumar Ramanathan (IND) 228, Sanam Singh (IND) 266, N. Vijay Sundar Prashanth (IND) 335. 4 Wild Cards: Balaji, Vishnu Vardhan, Sumit Nagal and Aryan Goveas.
The foreign players: Evgeny Donskoy (RUS) 115, Adrian Menendez-Maceiras (ESP) 135, James Ward ( GBR) 150, Yannick Mertens (BEL) 182, Ti Chen (TPE) 184, Alexander Kudryavtsev (RUS) 190, Germain Gigounon (BEL) 218, Daniel Nguyen (USA) 246, Gerard Granollers (ESP) 272, Robert Stephane (FRA) 304, Nikola Milojevic (SRB) 307, Egor Gerasimov (BLR) 316, Alexis Musialek (FRA) 320, Alessandro Bega (ITA) 322, Arthur D. Greef (BEL) 333, Maxime Janvier (FRA) 345.