Chennai, February 1st 2024: The Chennai Open ATP Challenger 100 Men’s International Tennis Championship 2024 is to be hosted by the Tamil Nadu Tennis Association between 4th and 11th February 2024 at the SDAT Tennis Stadium, Chennai. Since the inauguration of the stadium in December 1995 for the SAF Games, an international tennis event has been held here every year, barring the covid years of 2020 and 2021. ATP Challenger tournaments were conducted in the years 1996, 2018, 2019, 2023 and now in 2024. The popular ATP 250 tennis tournament was held every year from 1997- 2017 and for the first time ever in Chennai, a WTA 250 event was organized for women in 2022. All of this has been possible because of the excellent cooperation and support TNTA has had from the Government of Tamil Nadu and the Sports Development Authority of Tamil Nadu.
In his statement, The President of Tamil Nadu Tennis Association Mr. Vijay Amritraj added “On behalf of TNTA, I am delighted to congratulate Rohan Bopanna on becoming the World’s no.1 doubles player and winning the Australian open title at the same time. Having chased his dreams for such a long time, this is an amazing achievement for Rohan, and even more creditable that it has come at the age of 43. Rohan’s journey to the top began when he reached his first ever ATP Tour doubles final along with Prakash Amritraj at the Chennai Open in 2006”. Mr. Amritraj adds that “this, once again, is proof that the conduct of international tournaments such as the ATP Challenger, enable Indian players to excel on the world stage. The support of Government of Tamil Nadu has been incredible for conduct of International Tournaments.
Dr. Atulya Misra, Additional Chief Secretary Department of Youth Affairs and Sports Affairs Development said,’’ Government of Tamil Nadu is committed to develop sports in the State and plays is role that of facilitator by providing infrastructure and all support to players for developing themselves and federations to conduct tournaments. I wish the tournament all the best.”
Apart from providing Indian and Tamil Nadu players an international platform by organizing such world class tournaments, these results have further encouraged TNTA to embark on a new Player Development program called ‘THE NEXT LEVEL’, an effort to provide financial and technical support to top Tamil Nadu juniors to enable them to play to their potential and achieve sporting excellence.
In this edition of the Chennai Open ATP 100 International Men’s Tennis Championship 2024, players from 14 countries are participating and the competition is going to be stiff. The top seed is 20-year-old Luca Nardi of Italy who has improved his world ranking from 162 last year to 117 this year. A three-time Challenger event winner Luca played in the Next Gen Event held at Jeddah in 2023. He is no stranger to India as he had been here for the ATP Challenger last year and reached the final at Pune. He is followed by 26-year-old Sumit Nagal of India, fresh from his upset win over 31stseed Alexander Bublik at the recently concluded Australian Open 2024. Sumit has moved up from 502 in end 2022 to 137 in the rankings currently. The other seeds are Psvrcina Dalibor (CZE -165), Vitaliy Sachkov (UKR-168), Stefano Travaglia (ITA-196), Federic Gaio (ITA- 198), Yu Hiou Hsu (TPE-202) and Jacquet Kyrian (FRA-204). The above rankings might change based on the updated current ranking list that will be referred to prior to the draw being made. Former world number 17, Bernard Tomic is also expected to participate in this year’s edition making the field that much stronger. In the last ATP Challenger event held in 2023 in Chennai, Max Purcell of Australia won the event and went on to do well for himself reaching a career high world ranking of 40 later in 2023 and is now ranked 45.
The three Main Draw wild cards have been given to Ramkumar Ramanathan, India’s no 2, Mukund Sasikumar India’s no.3 and Nikoloz Basilashvili, 31-year-old Czech player and a former world number 17, who is making a strong comeback. The four wild cards in the Qualifying Singles event Manish Sureshkumar, Abhinav Sanjeev Shanmugam, R.S. Rethin Pranav and Siddarth Vishwakarma have been given wild cards in the Singles Qualifying event.
The tournament 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 Event is the first of 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 to 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 10th February 2024 while the singles finals is slated for Sunday 11th February 2024. The tournament is looking forward to the participation of the tennis fans from Chennai.
The tentative schedule for the week is as follows:
| Date | Day | Timing | Round | Event | No. of Matches on stadium court |
| 5th February | Monday | 2pm-10pm | Round of 32/16 | Singles/Doubles | 4 |
| 6th February | Tuesday | 2pm-10pm | Round of 32/16 | Singles/Doubles | 4 |
| 7thFebruary | Wednesday | 3pm to 10pm | Round of 16 | Singles/Doubles | 3 |
| 8thFebruary | Thursday | 3pm to 10pm | Round of 16 Quarter finals | Singles Doubles | 3 |
| 9thFebruary | Friday | 3pm to 10pm | Quarters Semifinal | Singles Doubles | 3 |
| 10thFebruary | Saturday | 3pm to 10pm | Semifinals | Singles | 3 |
| Finals | Doubles | ||||
| 11th February | Sunday | 5pm -7pm | Finals | Singles | 1 |