Four Indians in Main Draw at PMR Open ATP Challenger 100 Men’s International Tennis Championships
Third Wildcard for Mukund Sasikumar
Pune: Four Indians will feature in the main draw as country’s No 1 Player Prajnesh Gunneswaran made it to the main draw after the prescribed withdrawal time and organisers deciding to hand over a wildcard to India No 3 player Sasikumar Mukund who will join Sumit Nagal and Arjun Kadhe at the PMR Open ATP Challenger 100 Men’s International Tennis Championship organized by Maharashtra State Lawn tennis Association (MSLTA) at the Mhalunge Balewadi Tennis Stadium
The premier high Level ATP Challenger which is sponsored by Pune Metropolitan Regional Development Authority (PMRDA) billed as Indian Challenge May also see other Indian players coming through the qualifiers which begin on Sunday February 26
The Pune Event is the third of a series of ATP Challenger 100 events held in India. The previous tournaments were held at Chennai and Bengaluru .
Australian Davis Cupper and Olympian James Duckworth who took the title here in 2019 and reached the final at Bengaluru has been awarded the top billing
21 years old 108 world ranked Tsen Cheun Hsin from Taipei will be ranked second while. Wimbledon Doubles winner and in form Max Purcell of Australia who won the Chennai event and entered the finals at Bengaluru will be ranked third . Talented 19 year old Luca Nardi of Italy will be ranked fourth
There will be as many as 10 Indians in the doubles event Marc Polmans and Max Purcell of Australia will lead the seeding with local player Arjun Kadhe partnering Maximilian Neuchrist, of Austria ranked second
The pair of Parikshit Somani and Manish Sureshkumar and Faisal Qamar and Fardeen Qamar were awarded the wildcard in the doubles event
The other Indian pairs who will be seen in doubles action are Anirudh Chandrasekar- N Vijay Sundar Prashanth and Rithvik Choudary Bollipalli- Niki Kaliyanda Poonacha who won 6 ITF titles In a row made it to the main draw in doubles
In the qualifying the organisers decided to hand over the wildcards to youngsters Chirag Duhan , Nitinkumar Sinha who had won the Asian Junior at the same venue in 2018 and local boy Nishit Rahane who won the local Wildcard event recently alongside former national champion Niki Ponacha
The main draw consists of 32 players – 23 direct acceptances, 3 wild cards, 6 qualifiers. Qualifying consists of 24 players with 4 wild cards.
The prize money for the event will be USD 130000 (Rs.1.06 crores). The winner will receive 100 ATP ranking points and USD 17650 (Rs.14.47 lakhs) and the runner up 60 ATP points and USD 10380 (Rs.8.5 lakhs) the first round loser receives USD1270 (Rs.1.04 lakhs). The qualifiers also receive an incentive of USD 380 (Rs.31,000/-).
Mr Andrei Kornilov of Uzbekistan will be the ATP Supervisor for the event , while Sheetal Iyer will be the referee of the event which is hosted with the co-operation of the Dept of Sports and Youth Affairs Government of Maharashtra,
Other partners are Aryan Pumps , Dunlop (Official Equipment Partner ) , Enerzal (Energy Drink Partners) , Manipal Hospital ( Medical Partner) .
The timings of play will be from 10am onwards. Entry for spectators to witness the matches is free and we look forward to a great number of sports and tennis lovers to come to the stadium to witness the matches.
Following are The Probable Seeding (Singles)
1.James Duckworth (AUS,128) , 2. Chun-Hsin Tseng (TPE ,131), 3. Max Purcell (AUS,155), 4. Luca Nardi(ITA, 158), 5. Francesco Maestrelli(ITA, 178), 6. Dalibor Svrcina(CZE, 181), 7. Yu Hsiou Hsu(TPE, 206), 8. Marc Polmans(AUS, 209)
Wild Card: Sumit Nagal, Arjun Kadhe, Mukund Sasikumar
Doubles:
1 Marc Polmans, (AUS) / Max Purcell, (AUS) , 2. Arjun Kadhe, (IND) / Maximilian Neuchrist, (AUT) , 3 Petr Nouza, (CZE) / , Andrew Paulson (CZE) 4 Toshihide Matsui, (JPN) / Kaito Uesugi, (JPN)
Wildcards:
Parikshit Somani / Manish Sureshkumar ; Faisal Qamar / Fardeen Qamar
