Date:26/08/2005 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2005/08/26/stories/2005082611622000.htm

Sport - Tennis

Sunfeast Open mascot unveiled

KOLKATA: The winner of the country's biggest women's tennis event, Sunfeast Open, will be lifting the trophy moulded on a drawing made by a standard VIII student, Ipsita Saha, of a local Saint John's Diocesan Girls' High School. With the tournament slated to start on September 19, the sponsor ITC Foods Ltd, unveiled the mascot `Sunny' and the design of the trophy in a news conference on Thursday.

Ipsita Saha's drawing, depicting a ball balancing an inverted tennis racquet whose end is mutating into a female form in a serving posture while the face of the mascot is embedded on the strings, received the highest vote among 10,500 entries received from 100 different schools across the city. Tournament director, Jaidip Mukherjea, divisional chief executive of ITC Foods, Ravi Naware, actor Rupa Ganguly, and painter Wasim Kapoor formed the panel of judges who selected the winner, Saha, for producing the best visual balance, from a final short-list 1000 drawings. The winner, apart from getting a special television appearance during the tournament, will be given a computer as the prize. — Sports Reporter