Mumbai: Five Indians along with three foreigners make the main draw as the stage is set for the KPIT MSLTA Challenger, organised by MSLTA and PMDTA, under the auspices of ATP and AITA, which will unfold at the Mhalunge-Balewadi Tennis Complex in Pune from November 11.
Indian tennis stars, Prajnesh Gunneswaran, in-form player Sumit Nagal, Ramkumar Ramanathan and Saketh Myneni will be leading a strong Indian contingent in the only Challenger of the year, which is being organised uninterrupted by the Maharashtra State Lawn Tennis Association.
With two centres, Bangalore and Chandigarh pulling out of the race in organising Challengers in the country, this KPIT – MSLTA Challenger has drawn more attention.
"We will not know aware centres like Bengaluru and Chandigarh are not organising, but we are being organised for the last five years and this is our sixth edition," said Sunder Iyer, the Hon Secretary of MSLTA while talking to FPJ on the sidelines of the press conference. Players from over 20 countries make up a strong line up this year.
"Challenger has become popular worldwide and bigger and better players are participating regularly, making the event stronger every year. With the new 48 draw format, the cut-off this year is 550, which makes it a very strong Challenger at this level”. This year we have five wild cards and only two qualifiers will get a chance to make it to the main draw, ” stated Iyer about this seven-day contest.
“Our Challenger’s consistency on the ATP Challenger calendar has won us accolades from ATP too, we are happy. Having no other Challenger makes this event important and it is the need of the hour for our Indian players to compete at a world-class level and that too on home turf,” said Iyer.
“This is the 6th edition of our event and while we are happy that we have been able to conduct this year after year it is unfortunate that there are very few events in India that have been able to sustain this kind of momentum. We aim to promote Indian tennis players," said Kishor Patil, President of PMDTA and Chairman of the Organising Committee and Co-Founder, who is also the CEO and MD of KPIT.
