The ITF men's Futures tennis tournament returns to the newly-laid synthetic courts of Gandhi Nagar Club, after a gap of three years.
In fact, the last time a Futures category event of any sort was held in Tamil Nadu was in 2008 at the same venue. The third leg in Chennai — the K.C.G. Verghese memorial $10000 tournament — begins on Monday, with three of the eight seeded players being Indians and having as good a chance as any of the foreigners to bag the winner's purse.
Vishnu Vardhan, seeded two, will be eager to clinch a hat-trick of titles, having won it in Chandigarh and Noida, the hot and humid weather conditions notwithstanding.
Vardhan will take on Luxemburg's Mike Vermeer in the first round. Close on Vardhan's heels, is the top seed Karan Rastogi. Rastogi, who jumped to the top position after Danai Udomchoke of Thailand withdrew from the tournament, is having the best time of his life especially after surviving a career-threatening back injury in 2008.
“I'm in fine form, feeling absolutely fine,” said Rastogi. “I missed the second half of ‘08 and the entire '09 due to a back problem. After the surgery, where I've put screws in my back, I've had a wonderful 2010-11.
“Within a year of my comeback, I reached my career-best world ranking of 321. The last time I played a Futures in Chennai was in 2005. I am looking forward to it.” Rastogi faces qualifier Shantanu Rajput.
A first-timer
The Noida-leg finalist, 31-year-old Kim Young-Jun of Korea, is unsure of what to expect on his first visit to the city.
“The Indian players are friendly and very good players. Let's see,” said the third seed. Another first-timer to the city, Belgium's Dubail Julien, seeded fourth, is slowly getting used to the weather conditions in India, having taken part in the earlier two legs in Chandigarh and Noida.
“Its 15 degrees Celsius back home for us. I am looking forward to, may be a semifinal appearance,” he said.
Sixteen-year-old Neeraj Elangovan, who has been given a wild card, will challenge Belgium's Francois Chatelle, a qualifier.
The quality of Futures tournaments, felt Rastogi, contrary to public opinion, has got better in the last couple of years.
The results (final qualifying round, Indians unless otherwise mentioned) :
P. Vignesh w/o Chung-Su Chen (Tpe); Patrik Rosenholm (Swe) bt Ronak Manuja 6-3, 6-2; Arjun Kadhe bt Laurent-Olivier Daxhelet (Bel) 7-6(8), 6-4.
Ajai Selvaraj bt Amrit Narasimhan (USA) 6-2, 4-6, 6-1; Jeson Patrombom (Phi) bt Elwin Antony 6-2, 6-4; Suresh Krishna bt Bharath Srinivasan Parthasarathy 6-2, 6-2; Shantanu Rajput bt U. M. Gugan Verma 6-7(4), 7-6(3), 7-6(2); Francois Chatelle (Bel) bt Jatin Dahiya 6-3, 5-7, 6-4.
