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India's chances bright in tennis

By Abhijit Sen Gupta

Hyderabad Oct. 21. The decision of India's leading players to take part in the tennis competitions of the Afro-Asian Games has made the host's medal prospects extremely bright. S.P. Misra, captain of the men's team, was confident about India's chances when the competition gets underway on Oct. 25.

The team events will be held first, on a knock-out basis. In the men's section, the countries from Asia will be Uzbekistan, Sri Lanka and Philippines apart from host India. The African teams in the fray are Zimbabwe, Nigeria and Morocco.

For Indian players of the calibre of Prakash Amritraj, Rohan Bopanna, Vijay Kannan and Vishal Uppal, it might not be a tough task to get the better of their rivals. In the Uzbekistan line-up, one name is familiar to Indian tennis followers — Vadim Kutsenko, who took part in the ATP Challenger at Dharwad and lost to Bopanna. Kutsenko had earlier won the Asian championship title at Tashkent in September and is ranked 224 in singles and 362 in doubles.

Others in the Uzbek squad are Inoyatov Murad and Ikramov Sarvar.

Sri Lanka will be represented by the experienced Rohan de Silva, former Davis Cup player, and Harshana Godamanne.

In the women's category, too, the Indian team comprising Sania Mirza, Megha Vakharia, Rushmi Chakravarthy and Sonal Phadke looks formidable considering the strength of the other teams from Indonesia, Philippines Morocco, Egypt and Algeria. The Indonesian squad, however, has a good doubles combination in Sandy Gumulya and Septi Nindya Yutami, who have taken part in several ITF tournaments. Gumulya had also figured in the Grade 4 junior international at Chandigarh in 2001, where she progressed up to the quarterfinals before losing to Hyderabad's Sania Mirza. The other member is Maya Rosa Ariana Stefanie.

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