Bengaluru: Oct 12: The ITF World Women’s Tennis Tour bandwagon will roll into the Garden City for the ITF SKME Open that kicks off with the two-day qualifying round at the Karnataka State Lawn Tennis Association Tennis Stadium here on Sunday.

In all, 12 foreigners from 10 countries will take part in the $15,000 event that offers 15 ranking points to the winner. Twenty-four players, including four wild cards, have earned direct entries into the tournament and they will be joined by eight qualifiers.

Promising Bengalurean Harshini Nagaraj, who went down in a thriller in the quarterfinals of the Mysore Open, and Mandya’s Kashvi Sunil have been handed wild cards along with two other Indians — Lakshmiprabha Arunkumar and Yubrani Banerjee.

Three Karnataka players — Amodini Naik, Sreenidhi Balaji and Sonicka Jagdeesh – have been given wild cards into the qualifiers that comprises 24 Indians in all.

“We thank SKME for coming forward to support an important event on the women’s circuit,” said Shri Priyank M Kharge, Hon’ble Minister of IT & BT & RDPR, Govt. of Karnataka, who is also the Sr. Vice-President of the KSLTA. “The event in Karnataka will help nurture local talent besides helping the players hoping to take their game to the next level,” he added.

The prestigious tournament has attracted a quality field, said Tournament Director Gayathri Rao. “It’s a competitive field with players from 10 countries taking part. Shrivalli (Rashmikaa Bhamidipaty) is the top seed and you can expect good quality tennis over the week,” said Rao.