The Hindu : Sport / Tennis : Ashutosh Singh likely for Asia Cup

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Thursday, Nov 22, 2007
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Ashutosh Singh likely for Asia Cup

NEW DELHI: National champion Ashutosh Singh stands a good chance to be invited for the $100,000 LG Tennis Asia Cup, an event meant for the top eight players of the region, to be staged in Bangkok from November 28 to December 2.

A series of Challenger tournaments being played at the fag end of the season in the region, including a $50,000 event at the DLTA Complex here from November 26, has taken the sting out of the prestigious Asia Cup that is being launched this year, as an addition to the Asian championship that was held in Tashkent.

The country’s leading player, the 265th ranked Rohan Bopanna, busy in the $150,000 tournament this week in Kuala Lumpur has opted to play the two successive Challengers in Delhi rather than the Asia Cup.

With Prakash Amritraj still recovering from an injury, and with Karan Rastogi and Sunil Kumar scheduled to compete in the Challengers, the honour of representing the country is likely to go to the 534th ranked Ashutosh.

Interestingly, by winning the National championship recently, Ashutosh had won a wild card for the first of the two Challenger events at home.

Ashutosh, the fifth best Indian player on the latest ranking list, has jumped up 44 places after he had made the final of the $10,000 ITF Futures event at Lahore, Pakistan, recently in which he missed three match points at 6-3 in the final set tie-break.

He will only be too happy to compete in the Asia Cup which offers $30,000 for the winner and $20,000 for the runner-up.

With Asia’s leading player Hyung-Taik Lee (51) of Korea pulling out with a knee injury two days ago, the Asian Games champion Danai Udomchoke (159) will spearhead the line-up. — Special Correspondent

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