PUNE, October 17, 2015
Top Indian players and Indian Davis Cuppers Yuki Bhambri and Somdev Devvarman along with Saketh Myneni, Ramkumar Ramnathan, Sanam Singh, and Junior Wimbledon doubles Champion Sumit Nagal will spearhead the Indian charge at the MSLTA organised US-$50000 KPIT ATP Challenger which will be played at the Shiv Chattrapathi Mhalunge Balewadi Tennis Complex from October 24 to October 31.
The event will offer a total prize money of US-$50000, and is being jointly organized by the Maharashtra State Lawn tennis Association (MSLTA), Pune Metropolitan District tennis Association (PMDTA), in association with the Directorate of Sports and Youth Services Govt. of Maharashtra.
This ATP Challenger tournament is sponsored by Pune based technology specialist KPIT, and has been offered back to Pune city held in Pune for the second year in a row after the successful first edition that received very positive reports from the ATP.
Top players and Davis Cuppers from 25 countries across the world including James Ward of England (who is on the British team for the 2015 Davis Cup Finals), Yanick Mertens of Belgium (who is member of the Belgian Davis Cup team to play in the finals), former world no 65 Evgeny Donskoy of Russia, Adrian Menendez-Maceiras of Spain have sent in their entries, which closed yesterday evening, the final acceptance list will be out 2weeks before the event.
“The tournament is a great opportunity for Indian players to pick up valuable points. A title here can help players like Yuki and Somdev to start the New Year on a High. Yuki who is on verge on breaking into the top 100 in world tennis will try and strengthen his place,“ said Mr. Kishor Patil, the President of the organizing Committee.
Adding further Mr. Sunder Iyer, Tournament Director and Hon. Secretary of the MSLTA said, “We expect 10 Indian players in the main draw including the wildcards giving Indian players an opportunity to compete at world class level and that too on the home turf”.
The KPIT Challenger will offer US-$7,200 and 80 ATP points to the winner while the runners up gets US-$4,053 and 55 ATP Points. Italian Roberto Ranieri who is also the referee for the Rome ATP Masters 1000 Event will be the ATP Supervisor, while Riccardo Ragazzini of Italy, Nitin Kannamwar, Saibal Banerjee, Abhishek Mukherjee have been designated as Umpires for the event.
“A special Organizing Committee with Jayant Kadhe, Himanshu Gosavi, Kaustubh Shah as organizing secretaries and Arun Sane, Narendra Sopal, Abhishek Tamhane, Prashant Sutar, Ashwin Girme, Sameer Bhambre, Swati Pednekar, Jehan Kothary, Rajendra Kango, Charuta Patwardhan, Pravin Zite, Hemant Bendrey, Mandar Kapshikar, Shekar Sonsale as members of the Committee, has been formed to ensure the success of the event”, Iyer added.
