Sport - Tennis

Bopanna keen to do well

NEW DELHI: Rohan Bopanna will look to continue from where he had left when he opens his campaign against Go Soeda of Japan in the SAIL Open Challenger tennis tournament at the DLTA Complex here on Monday.

The 132nd ranked fourth seed, Soeda will be keen to resurrect his reputation after having missed matchpoints against Prakash Amritraj in the crucial Davis Cup rubber.

As per the draw made on Saturday, Prakash takes on the seventh seed Brendan Evans of the US. Among the three Indian wild cards, Ashutosh Singh plays the eighth-seeded Alexandre Kudryavtsev of Russia.

Ashutosh replaced Karan Rastogi as a wild card recipient as the latter opted out owing to below par physical fitness. Ashutosh had been put in the qualifying draw but was pulled out and given the honour.

Harsh Mankad plays Thomas Oger of France while Yuki Bhambri will be up against Adam Feeney of Australia.

Some of the Indians put themselves in line to qualify, as Kamala Kannan, Rohan Gide, Rahil Makharia and Mustafa Ghouse reached the third and final qualifying round.

Kannan was impressive as he fought against Tushar Liberhan 5-7, 7-6(7), 7-5 in the first qualifying round and celebrated the hard earned victory with a 6-0, 6-0 triumph over Ravjeet Singh in the second round.

Kannan will play the top-seeded Ilia Marchenko of Ukraine for a place in the main draw. At least one Indian has been assured a qualifier’s spot, as Makharia plays Mustafa Ghouse in the final round.Ghouse asserted his growing confidence by beating Sunil Kumar 7-6(6), 6-4 in the second qualifying round.

Rohan Gide may have it tough, as he would be up against the Chinese Davis Cupper Sun Peng, after he was lucky to get a walkover from the Japanese Davis Cupper Gouichi Motomura.

The seeds: 1. Yen-Hsun Lu (Tpe), 2. Gilles Muller (Lux), 3. Kristian Pless (Den), 4. Go Soeda (Jpn), 5. Alun Jones (Aus), 6. Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi (Pak), 7. Brendan Evans (US), 8. Alexandre Kudryavtsev (Rus).

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