Somdev, Saketh vie for spot in main draw

India’s Somdev Devvarman, Saketh Myneni and Sanam Singh will vie for a spot in the main draw when the qualifying round of the Aircel Chennai Open begins here on Friday.

The qualifying singles rounds will be played on Friday and Saturday at the SDAT Stadium. Four places are up for grabs in the singles main draw, and the result of these two days will determine which four players make it to the 28-player field of the 20th edition of India’s most premier and South Asia’s only ATP World Tour event.

The qualifying singles round is a draw of 16 with 14 direct acceptances and two wildcards. Leading the charge amongst the Indian boys will be Saketh, Somdev and Sanam. Sanam was granted a wildcard into the qualifying singles draw earlier this week, but has now gained direct entry into the qualifying main draw.

The USD 480,000 prize money tournament will witness an impressive field in the form of World No 4 Stan Wawrinka -- who will vye for a hat-trick of titles, World No 12 Kevin Anderson, World No 19 and ATP's Comeback Player of the Year 2015 Benoit Paire, World No 25 Roberto Bautista-Agut, along with Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, Gilles Muller, Vasek Pospisil, Borna Coric, and Aljaz Bedene representing nine players from amongst the top 50 in the world.

Complete qualifying singles draw is: Luca Vanni (Italy, 107 ranking); Jan-Lennard Struff (Germany, 108); Elias Ymer (Sweden, 136); Blaz Kavcic (Slovenia, 151); James Ward (Great Britain, 156); Thomas Fabiano (Italy, 157); Alexander Kudryavtsev (Russia, 164); Ante Pavic (Croatia, 166); Hans Podlipnik-Castillo (Chile, 170); Saketh Myneni (India, 171); Somdev Devvarman (India, 180); Jozef Kovalik (Slovakia, 259); Sanam Singh (India, 279); Matthew Barton (Australia, 299); N Vijay Sundar Prasanth (India, 378); Prajnesh Gunneswaran (India, 484).