The Chennai Open ATP Challenger 100 Men’s International Tennis Championship 2025 will be hosted by the Tamil Nadu Tennis Association between 2nd and 9th February 2025 at the SDAT Tennis Stadium, Nungambakkam, Chennai.
In this edition of the tournament players from 14 countries (Czech Republic, Great Britain, South Africa, Croatia, Japan, Hong Kong, Kazakhstan, Canada, Uzbekistan, Spain, Hungary, France, Italy, and Turkey) will be participating and the competition is going to be stiff. The top seed is Billy Harris of Great Britain ranked 127 now among the top 8 players in Great Britain. He is followed at No 2 by Lloyd Harris of Republic of South Africa ranked 135.The other seeds are Duje Ajdukovic (CRO-138), Shintaro Mochizuki (JPN-169), Sho Shimabukuro (JPN – 191) Timofey Skatov (KAZ-194), Alexis Galarneau (CAN-198), Khumoyun Sultanov (UZB – 216) and Aslan Karatsev (222). Anne Bees of Canada will be the ATP Supervisor; she will be added by Santhosh Venkatraman (Referee) and P Saravanan (Chief of Officials).
Ramkumar Ramanathan, Mukund Sasikumar and Karan Singh, members of India’s current Davis Cup team, the former two being from Tamil Nadu, have been given wild cards for the Main Draw.
In the last ATP Challenger event held in 2024 in Chennai, Sumit Nagal, India’s top player, won the event and went on to crack the top hundred in world ranking, eventually reaching a career high ranking of 68 later in the year.
TNTA is celebrating 2025 as its centenary year and is proud of the fact that every year since 1996, barring the COVID years a major international event has been conducted at the SDAT Tennis Stadium. Over the last three decades, the eventual winners as well as a host of Indian players who participated in the Chennai event have gone on to perform exceptionally well during the year, achieving their respective career milestones for the first time ever. The instances range from Leander reaching the final in the Challenger event in 1996, Leander and Mahesh Bhupathi winning the first ever ATP 250 doubles title in 1997, Rohan Bopanna reaching his first ever ATP 250 doubles and Somdev Devvarman reaching the singles final in 200___, Ramkumar Ramanathan reaching the quarters in …. and Stanislas Wawrinka winning his first event grand slam title right on the heels of winning the singles title at the Chennai ATP. Chennai Open was often called the tournament for future champions.
Vijay Amritraj, President of Tamil Nadu Tennis Association remarked “On behalf of TNTA, I thank the Government of Tamil Nadu and all the sponsors for their consistent support to tennis over the years. The conduct of international tournaments such as the ATP Challenger enable Indian players to excel on the world stage and has encouraged TNTA to embark on an ambitious 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 tennis excellence. Rethin Pranav, 17 years old from Karur, who has been a part of the programme became the National Men’s Singles Champion and was one of two Indians to participate in the Australian Open Junior Singles event in 2025.
It is a privilege for me to head TNTA in this memorable year, the 100th year. Looking back at what has happened in Tamil Nadu tennis in a century – the tremendous achievement of players on the world and national stages, the conduct of tournaments, international, national and local, organization of club events and the implementation of development programmes – in spite of constraints, I am filled with great pride. All of this was only possible due to the dedication, integrity and enthusiasm of each President and Secretary and all the council members, the consistent support of the Government of Tamil Nadu and the enthusiastic sports-loving public of Tamil Nadu over the last 100 years. We do want to mark the occasion in a special manner and will keep you informed as we go along.”
The tournament is being hosted with the support of the Government of Tamil Nadu and the cooperation of the Sports Development Authority of Tamil Nadu. The sponsor list includes Coromandel International (Platinum sponsor), Indian Overseas Bank (Gold Plus sponsor), HDFC (Gold sponsor) and Lancor Holdings (Silver sponsor). Kauvery Hospital is the Medical Partner and The Park Hotels is the Hospitality partner while ACT Fibernet is the Connectivity Partner.
The main draw consists of 32 players – 23 direct acceptances, 3 wild cards, 6 qualifiers. Qualifying consists of 24 players with 4 wild cards. The prize money for the event is USD 160,000/- (Rs.1.06 crores). Prize Money for Singles Winner is USDollars 22730/- (Rs 19,32,050/-) and will get 100 points, while the Runner Up will receive USDollars 13350/- (Rs 11,34,750/-) and will get 50 points. Double pair winners will receive USDollars 7960/- (Rs 6,76,600/-) and Runner Up USD 4600 (Rs 3,91,000). The Chennai Event is the first of a series of ATP Challenger 100 events to be held in India. The next few tournaments are to be held at Delhi, Pune, and Bengaluru.
Entry for spectators to witness the matches is free. The qualifying event is on Sunday 2nd February 2025 and the playing sessions of the Main Draw will start on Monday the 3rd February and will be played from 10 am continuing under floodlights if required. The Doubles finals will be played on Saturday 8th February 2025 while the singles finals is slated for Sunday 9th February 2025. The tournament is looking forward to the participation of the sports and tennis fans from Chennai.