National champion Vishnu Vardhan and Siddharth Rawat and Maharashtra’s Dhruv Sunish and Jayesh Pungaliya have been awarded wild cards for the $50,000 KPIT men’s ATP Challenger to be played at the Mahalunge Balewadi Tennis Complex, Pune from October 22 to 29.
The top seed for the event is Russia’s No.1 and Rio Olympics quarterfinalist Evgeny Donskoy. The No. 2 seed is Spain’s Ramirez Hidalgo and the No. 3 seed is Saketh Myneni. India’s Ramkumar Ramanathan is the No. 5 seed.
The women’s $10,000 ITF will also be held concurrently. India’s Snehal Mane and Mihika Yadav have been given the wild cards.
Addressing newspersons meet here, Kishor Patil, MD, KPIT, said, “We hope to make this into one of the biggest tennis events in the country in the coming years. I’m also happy that our tournament which is being held for the third year in a row has thrown up new champions every year.”
The event is supported by Simply Delicious, HP, Fuego, Work Place, Dell EMC, Bhagirath Enterprises, Vector and BVG, City Pride, Radio One and Yonex.
The probable seedings list: KPIT ATP Men: 1. Donskoy, Evgeny (Rus), 2. Ramirez Hidalgo (Spain), 3. Saketh Myneni (India) , 4. Duckhee Lee (Kor), 5. Ramkumar Ramanathan (Ind), 6. Nikola Milojevic (Serbia), 7. Popko Dmitry (Kaz), 8. James Ward (GBr).
Women: 1. Prerna Bhambri, 2. Riya Bhatia, 3. Dhruthi Tatachar Venugopal, 4. Natasha Palha, 5. Prarthana Thombare, 6. Kyra Shroff, 7. Pranjala Yadlapalli, 8. Rishika Sunkara.
Prize money: KPIT Men’s Challenger: Winner: $7,200 and 80 ATP points; Runner-up: $4,053 and 55 ATP points; Women’s ITF: Winner: $1568 and 18 WTA points; Runner-up: $ 980 and 10 WTA points.
