Manipal University will host Udupi district's first global tennis event, the $10,000 ITF Men's Tournament, at the university's indoor sports complex, “Marena Courts”, here from May 23 to 28.
The tournament, with Corporation Bank as the title sponsor, will be conducted by the Karnataka State Lawn Tennis Association (KSLTA) in association with Zygosports Unlimited, a sports management company. Chancellor of the university Ramdas M. Pai will inaugurate the tournament. The drawing of lots for the championship was done by Additional Deputy Commissioner T.M. Prabhakar, Pro-Chancellor of Manipal University H.S. Ballal, and Assistant General Manager of the Corporation Bank K.N.V. Prabhu on Saturday.
Ranjeet Virali-Murugesan is the top seed player, Rohan Gajjar, second seed, Takuto Niki of Japan is third, and the rest of the seeded players are Vijayant Malik (fourth), Vitali Reshetnikov of Russia (fifth), Kaza Vinayak Sharma (sixth), Koki Matsunaga of Japan (seventh), and Vivek Shokeen (eighth). The ITF referee of the tournament Sheetal Iyer said: “I am amazed at the facilities for the championship. We have good courts here, wonderful ambience, and I hope more and bigger ITF events or even Challenger events are conducted here.” The qualifying rounds are in progress and eight will make it to the main draw which has a field of 32, including 20 main draw players and eight qualifiers and four wild cards.
The singles winner and finalist will get $ 1300 and $ 990, respectively, as prize money.
