Chennai February 3, 2024: 13 Indian players, three in the singles draw and 10 in the doubles draw, along with 11 more in the singles qualifying draw, will feature in the Chennai Open ATP Challenger which kicks off this weekend at the SDAT Tennis Stadium.
Leading the Indian campaign in singles, Sumit Nagal, fresh off qualifying for and reaching the second round of the Australian Open in January and sitting at a career-high No. 121 in the world rankings, will play a qualifier in the first round.
Wild card entrant Ramkumar Ramanathan will square off against sixth seed Oriol Roca Batalla in the opening round while Sasikumar Mukund, also a wild card entrant, faces Poland’s Maks Kasnikowski.
Top seed Luca Nardi will take on a qualifier in the first round and could meet former top 20 player Bernard Tomic in the second round, The Australian, a former Wimbledon quarter-finalist, won an ITF M25 event in Chennai last weekend and will be aiming to extend his winning streak to six matches when he takes on a qualifier in his first match.
Another former top 20 player trying to regain his foothold among the game’s best, Georgia’s Nikoloz Basilashvili, who received a wild card entry into the main draw, faces Chinese Taipei’s Chun-Hsin Tseng in the opening round.
The 16-team doubles main draw features 10 Indian players, led by top seed Sriram Balaji, who is partnering with German Andre Begemann, and fourth seeded all-Indian duo Niki Poonacha/ Rithvik Choudary.
In the singles qualifying draw, 11 Indians, including S D Prajwal Dev, Adil Kalyanpur, Ishaque Eqbal, Manish Sureshkumar and Karan Singh, will attempt to win two matches to secure one of six berths to take one of the qualifier spots in the main draw.
The qualifying matches begin on Sunday February 4th with main draw matches scheduled to get underway on Monday February 5th.
The Chennai Open ATP Challenger is being hosted with the support of the Government of Tamil Nadu and The Sports Development Authority of Tamil Nadu. The sponsors include Coromandel International (Platinum), Indian Bank (Gold), Kauvery Hospitals (Medical Partner) Lancor Group (Silver). The Park Hotels is the Hospitality Partner, ACT Fibernet is the Fibernet Partner, and Chennai Live is the Digital App partner.
The Chennai Open is the first in a series of ATP Challenger 100 events to be held in India. The tournaments to follow are scheduled to be held at Bengaluru, Pune, and Delhi. Entry for spectators is free and to make it more convenient, the organizers have planned to play the matches under flood lights as well. While the qualifying event on Sunday 4th February 2024 will be played during the day, the playing sessions of the Main Draw will start on Monday the 5th February will be played from 2 p.m. onwards and continue under floodlights till end of day’s play.
The Doubles finals will be played on Saturday February 10, 2024 while the singles finals has been slated for Sunday February 11, 2024. The tournament is looking forward to the participation of the tennis fans from all over Chennai.
Image: Sumit Nagal at the 2023 Chennai Open ATP Challenger
Photo by Srividya Balayogi