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Ashutosh, Sukul enter pre-quarters
With the top seeds getting down to business only on Tuesday and the meet hit by three more pullouts, the National Grasscourt Tennis Championship got off to a bland start at the South Club.
With the top seeds getting down to business only on Tuesday and the meet hit by three more pullouts, the National Grasscourt Tennis Championship got off to a bland start at the South Club.
Reigning men’s champion Vishnu Vardhan isn’t here because he is training at Nick Bollettieri’s academy in the US. It was announced that the men’s fourth-seed Narayanswamy Balaji of Tamil Nadu pulled out because of viral fever.
Vinod Sridhar and Shivang Mishra had opted out earlier leading to Tamil Nadu’s Ramkumar Ramanathan, Bengal’s Robin Das and Lakshai Sood of UP getting into the main draw as lucky losers. This after the women’s qualifiers had to be scrapped because of few entries.
Delhi’s Ashutosh Singh, who came through the qualifiers, entered the round of 16 with an easy 6-1, 7-5 win against Tamil Nadu’s Vignesh Veerabhadran. Also through were Bengal’s Saurav Sukul, who beat the veteran Saurav Panja, 6-1, 3-6, 6-3 and Manoj Sewa. Sewa beat Robin 6-3, 6-3.
In the women’s competition, wild card Amrita Mikherjee lost to fellow Kolkatan Shruti Dhawan Sharma 5-7, 3-6. Aandrita Deb, also from the city, went down 3-6, 1-6 to Haryana’s Smriti Joon.
Five-time women’s champion and top seed Rushmi Chakravarthi, Shivika Burman and Sweta Kumari Solanki got a bye in the first round and will start on Tuesday. Also starting on Day II are men’s top seed V.M. Ranjeet against B. Vikram Reddy and Vivek Shokeen who will play Divij Sharan.
Somdev gets wild card for Chennai Open
Chennai: Indian Davis Cup players Somdev Devvarman and Rohan Bopanna have received wild cards for the singles main draw of ATP Aircel Chennai Open tennis tournament to be held here from Jan 4-10.
Somdev, ranked 126, was the finalist here last year. He along with Sanam Singh has received the wild card for the doubles draw as well.
Former World No.1 Carlos Moya from Spain, who won here in 2004 and 2005, has received a wild card for both singles and doubles main draw.
