Monday, Aug 19, 2002
Monday, Aug 19, 2002 |
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Tennis
By Kamesh Srinivasan
The strong young man from Coorg starts as the top seed in the $ 10,000 ITF Futures tennis tournament at the DLTA Complex here on Monday, and knows that he can win the event. With 51 ATP points in his kitty, and a recent semifinal appearance in a $ 15,000 tournament in US, Bopanna is brimming with confidence at the moment, as the best-ranked Indian on the ATP computer. "I am looking forward to going up further in ranking when the six ATP points that I won last week get added to my account,'' said Bopanna, quite relaxed after a training stint here. He had reached the capital after the tournaments in the US, and has been training diligently, getting used to the sticky weather. "It was hot in the US with temperatures going up to 46 degree centigrade. But it is a lot more humid here,'' said Bopanna, who will start against qualifier Sanchai Ratiwatana of Thailand. With Bopanna in the focus, especially so after he had won the last tournament held at this venue in March, Harsh Mankad starts quietly as an unseeded wild card entrant. The 22-year-old Harsh, with good outings in Davis Cup ties in recent times against tough opponents, may not have to really worry about the Davis Cup selection meeting to be held in Hyderabad on August 26. Yet, the Mumbai lad better add some ATP points to his paltry collection of two points after three tournaments in Canada and two in Europe that puts him at 1321 in the ranking list. In fact, the captain of the Indian Davis Cup team, Ramesh Krishnan must be a worried man when he looks at the rankings and ATP points of his team members, in view of the Davis Cup World Group qualifying tie against Australia next month. Mustafa Ghouse, seeded No. 2 thanks to his ranking of 542, will look to enhance his reputation and boost his collection of 37 ATP points. It will be interesting when he possibly runs into Harsh in the second round. There are a whole lot of other Indian players, Nitin Kirtane, Vijay Kannan, Ajay Ramaswamy, Sunil Kumar, Rishi Sridhar, Rohan Gajjar, Kamala Kannan, Amanjot Singh, Vinod Sridhar, Shivang Mishra and Punna Vishal who can make it lively. From that viewpoint, the 14 foreign entrants, with two of them good enough to be seeded at No.7 and 8, and most of them from Israel, may not be able to attract much attention. The current string of three Futures tournaments, with the second and third to be played in Gulbarga and Chennai, will provide a good idea about the future course of Indian tennis. Maybe, the views of the selectors get swayed with the performances of the players this week, though the general impression is that there will be continuity, and not much room for change. Anyway, the players will focus on their matches, and leave the rest to the wise heads. They have no option either. The results (qualifying event): Third and final round: Amanjot Singh bt Saurav Panja 6-2, 6-3; Sanchai Ratiwatana (Tha) bt Dori Sadovnik (Isr) 6-2, 6-3; Bhee Witoonpanich (Tha) bt Dipesh Rao 2-6, 6-2, 6-1; Jaco T. Mathew bt Devinder Singh Bhusari 6-1, 6-1; Divij Sharan bt Iram Peled (Isr) 6-3, 6-1; Moti Maaravi (Isr) bt Gurmehar Singh 6-2, 7-5; Yoav Benzvi (Isr) bt Mehdi Sekkat (Mar) 7-6 (7-5), 6-4; Ishay Hadash (Isr) bt Jung-Young Kim (Kor) 6-4, 6-4. First round: Jung-Young Kim bt Abhishek Tamhane 1-6, 6-3, 6-4.
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