The Hindu : Sport / Tennis : National men’s championship begins

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National men’s championship begins

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: The DSCL National men’s tennis championship, starting at the DLTA Complex here from Monday, wears an open look and offers only Rs. 30,000 for the winner. In a calendar with a healthy array of international events that offer prize money ranging from $10,000 to $50,000, the national championship, looks an impoverished appendage.

And, there is no news of the national grasscourt championship.

The original announcement that the winner here would get a wild card for the Chennai Open ATP Tour event has also been quietly withdrawn.

From the winner’s purse of Rs. 100,000 in the previous years, it is a huge pay cut for the eventual champion.

With nothing but the tag of national champion at stake, only a handful of players with ATP points will figure in the tournament — which gives someone like Akash Wagh a chance to spring a surprise or two.

The talented 18-year-old boy from Mumbai — who had enchanted everyone with his elegant game against Dmitry Tursunov in the ATP Tour event in Mumbai two years ago — is languishing at 127 among the juniors in the world. He came through the qualifying event, winning four rounds, losing only three games, including two in the fifth and final round.

The seedings: 1. V.M. Ranjeet, 2. Rohan Gide, 3. P.C. Vignesh, 4. Vijay Sundar Prashant, 5. Yannick Nelord, 6. Vinod Sridhar, 7. Kamala Kannan, 8. Arjun Goutham.

Wild cards: Palash Tiwari, Aditya Madkekar, Vedant Kapoor, Ronak Manuja.

Final qualifying round: Deepinder S. Bains bt Garry Amor 6-3, 6-4; Ketan Dhumal bt Ashwin Nambi 6-3, 6-4; Sandeep Choudhary bt Ankesh Bhargava 6-3, 6-3; Akash Wagh bt Brahmjot Singh 6-1, 6-1; Shantanu Rajput bt Narendran Ranganathan 7-5, 4-6, 7-6(2); Elwin Antony bt Vikas Chauhan 7-6(5), 6-4; Javed Hazary bt Pulkit Mishra 6-3, 7-6(6); Bhishma Desai bt Vinay Mohan 6-1, 6-2.

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