Sriram Balaji will be the major force in the $5,000 Asian Tour tennis tournament to be played at the DLTA Complex here from Monday.
The 26-year-old Balaji, ranked 439 in the world, had made the
semifinals of the $25,000 ITF men’s Futures in Australia on Friday.
For the strong players, like Vishnu Vardhan who has been dominating the Asian Tour and performing well in ITF events and
Challenger events, there is good money to gain for winning four rounds in a draw of 16.
Moreover, there has also been an announcement that the top eight
will share a $45,000 bonus at the end of the circuit. The No. 1
and No. 2 are in line to receive $15,000 and $10,000 respectively.
The third and fourth-placed will receive $5,000 each and the fifth to eighth will be given $2,500 each as bonus.
The results:
Qualifying event (second and final round): Pallav Kumar Rousha bt
Archit Jain 3-6, 6-4, 6-3; Parth Aggarwal bt Kshitij Kamal 6-1, 6-1; Gaurang bt Lakshay Gupta 6-3, 6-1; Aaditya Tewari bt Anshuman Gulia 6-1, 6-4.
First round: Rousha bt Ojas Rathee 6-2, 6-3; Jain bt Arnav Alok Goel 6-3, 6-4; Aggarwal bt Medhir Goyal 6-1, 6-0; Kamal bt Neelabh Narayan 6-0, 6-1; Gaurang bt Arpit Sharma 6-4, 6-4; Gupta bt Mohit Bhardwaj 6-2, 6-4; Tewari bt Garvit Gupta 6-1, 6-0; Gulia bt Jagmeet Singh 6-4, 3-6, 10-8.
The seedings: 1. Sriram Balaji, 2. Sidharth Rawat, 3. Niki Poonacha, 4. Kunal Anand.
