World No 2 and top seed Rafael Nadal of Spain will take on Mathieu Montcourt of France in the first round of the $ 436,000 ATP Chennai Open tennis tournament commencing here on Monday.

Nadal, who lost to Xavier Malisse of France in the semifinals last year, has third seed Carlos Moya (Spain), a winner here in 2004 and 2005, in his half of the draw besides seventh seed Werner Eschauer (Austria), and eighth seed Marc Gicquel (France).

Defending champion but unseeded Malisse is in the bottom half of the draw along with 16th ranked second seed Marcos Baghdatis (Cyprus), fourth seed and one of the title favourites Mikhail Youzhny (Russia).

"It is a very well spread out, heavy and deep draw. You cannot say a particular player has an easy run and I feel the tournament is very open this time," commented Vijay Amritraj who conducted the draw.

"There are quite a few players in the draw who are capable of causing a few upsets. There is Malisse and Youzhny besides the eternal favourite Moya who will be vying for honours along with Nadal and Baghdatis," Amritraj added. While Amritraj expected a "decent run" for Nadal up to the quarterfinals in this 32-player draw, a potential hazard for the Spaniard was the 33-year old Werner.  India’s Prakash Amritraj, a wild card entrant, will open against a qualifier while Vishnu Vardhan.

Five Indians advance

Five Indians advanced to the second round of Chennai Open qualifiers, adds PTI. Mustafa Ghouse, Karan Rastogi, Stephen Amritraj and Rajeev Ram were the other Indians to win their respective first round matches.

The results: M Ghouse (Ind) bt Ajai Selvaraj (Ind) 6-1, 6-3; Karan Rastogi (Ind) bt Divji Sharan (Ind) 7-5, 4-6, 6-4; Igor Kunitsyn (Rus) bt Sriram Balaji (Ind) 6-2, 6-3; Alexandre Kudryavlsev (Rus) bt Akash Wagh (Ind) 6-2, 6-0; Kristian Pless (Den) bt Vivek Shokeen (Ind) 6-3, 6-4, Sonchat Ratiwatana (Tha) bt Vignesh (Ind) 7-6, 6-1; Lovro Zovko (Cro) bt Sunil Kumar Sipaeya (Ind) 7-6 (1), 6-3; Denis Matsukevitch (Rus) bt Michael Ryderstedt (Swe) 6-4, 7-5; Harel Levy (Isr) bt Jaroslav Levinsky (Cze) 6-1, 6-1; Michael Merlinak (Svk) bt Vijay Kannan (Ind) 6-1, 6-4; Rajeev Ram (Ind) bt Karunuday Singh 6-1, 6-2; Stefano Galvani (Ita) bt Harsh Mankad 6-1, 6-1; Stephen Amritraj (Ind) bt Tushar Liberhan (Ind) 6-4, 3-6, 6-3; David Martin (USA) bt Ranjeet Murugeasan (Ind) 6-3, 6-0; Alexander Peya (Aut) bt Jim Thomas (USA) 6-3, 6-2.