Sport - Tennis

Bellary Open from today

BELLARY: The $ 15,000 Bellary Open ITF Futures men’s championship which gets underway at the Bellary Policed Gymkhana courts here on Monday, marks the renewal of KLSTA’s vision 2000 initiative which was aimed at taking big time tennis to small towns.

Between 2000 and 2005, Karnataka had hosted many ITF events which were conducted in remote towns such as Glubarga, which in turn had spawned construction of brand new facilities for tennis in those areas. Now after a lull of two years, the Bellary Open ushers in tennis in a big way to this district town.

The dusty town with soaring temperatures (40 centigrade) might not be an ideal venue in certain aspects, but in others it is very good. The Bellary Police Gymkhana courts, a brain child of former SP of Bellary, Hemanth Nimbalkar, is indeed an impressive structure, which houses four synthetic courts, shuttle courts, auditorium and a mini swimming pool, besides a players lounge. The centre, which is an ideal example of government and citizens joint enterprise, is bound to put Bellary firmly on the Indian tennis map.

The championship promises some keen fare with quite a long list of Indians in the main draw and the organisers have given four wild cards to promising youngsters, including Yuki Bhambri, Rupesh Roy, Rahil Makharia and Arjun Goutham, who is back on the circuit after a lay off following an injury.

The wild cards for doubles went to Indian pairs — Aditya Madkekar and Arjun Goutham, Rupesh Roy and Rohan Gajjar, Kaushik Raju and Rohan Gide.

With six Indians making it to the main draw from the qualifying round, the Bellary Open has a strong Indian presence. There are 19 Indians in the main draw with Sunil Kumar Sipeya, ranked 602, being the top Indian in the fray. The other main contenders include seasoned Vijay Kannan and National hard court champion Ashutosh Singh, Tushar Liberhan, Aditya Madkekar and the 15-year-old Yuki Bhambri, who had such a good run in the Nationals.

Paval Cervenak of Slovakia, ranked 332, is the top seed of the tournament and Asuhtosh Singh runs into him in the first round.

The opening day will feature four singles matches only in order to provide the players who had made a long journey to Bellary enough rest.

On Tuesday, it will be a packed schedule of 12 singles matches.

The doubles finals are scheduled on October 19 and the singles final on October 20.

The singles winner takes home $1,950 and 24 points while the doubles champions split $945 besides 24 point.

The results (final qualifying round, all Indians unless specified): Robert Belak (Srb) bt Mahendra Varman 6-2, 6-1; Vijay Sundar Prashanth bt Rohan Gajjar 6-4, 7-5; Roel Oostdam (Ned) bt Kaushik Raju 6-4, 6-2; Vijayant Malik bt Arnav Jain 6-4, 6-1; Vignesh Chandrashekar bt Yannick Nelord 2-6, 7-5, 6-2; Ashwin Vijayarghavan bt Rohan Gide 6-4, 7-6(4); Ranjeet V. Murugesan bt Ajai Selvaraj 6-3, 6-4.

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