Rastogi returns to happy hunting ground

The crowd favourite will, once again be third seed and world No. 370 Karan Rastogi, this tournament could well prove to be a testing one for top seed Alexey Kedriouk of Kazakhstan.

The ITF Futures men’s tournament returns to the Capital on Monday, promising some thrilling action at the DLTA courts along with it. While the crowd favourite will, once again be third seed and world No. 370 Karan Rastogi, this tournament could well prove to be a testing one for top seed Alexey Kedriouk of Kazakhstan.

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Kedriouk — who faces unseeded Purav Raja on Monday — has not won a single tournament since he, playing for his country, prevailed in a Davis Cup tie against Indonesia last September.

After that, he has crashed to losses against a number of unseeded players thus making it all the more important for him to regain form and justify his seeding.

Meanwhile, Rastogi will also be looking to win another Futures title, with his last win having come in December at the same venue. He plays his first match on Tuesday.

Rastogi, who failed to put up a fight in Kolkata last week — he lost in the pre-quarters to Korean Kyu-Tae Im 2-6, 3-6 — will try his best to live up to the expectations this time.

Monday's first match will be between second seed Gabriel Morariu of Romania and unseeded Ashutosh Singh.

Monday's matches: Ashutosh Singh vs Gabriel Moraru, Alexey Kedriouk vs Purav Raja, Navdeep Singh vs Hyun-Woo Nam, Kaushik Raju vs Kyu-Tae Im.