Sumit Nagal, seeded two at the DafaNews Bengaluru Open, will be hoping to continue his good run this week as well.
Credit: PTI File Photo
Bengaluru: With the lone ATP 250 event that was held in India for 27 years moving to Hong Kong last year, tennis aficionados in the country are left to make do with a few ATP Challengers scheduled this season.
And the main draw of the second event out of the four lined up this year -- the DafaNews Bengaluru Open -- will begin here at the Karnataka State Lawn Tennis Association from Monday.
The week-long event carries a total prize money of $130,250, with the singles winner taking home 100 ATP points and a cheque of $18,230.
Italy's Luca Nardi, who is ranked 114 in the world, is the top seed in the singles draw that will see players from 14 countries battling it out. The 20-year-old is up against a qualifier in the first round.
Another known name on tour, Canada's Vasek Pospisil, a former World No. 25, was given a wild card and will begin his campaign against Korea's Seoanchan Hong.
With defending champion Max Purcell of Australia giving the tournament a miss, a new name is likely to emerge as the champion.
Unless India's Sumit Nagal, who won the first edition of the event in 2017, can ride on his new-found confidence to go all the way to make it two titles in a row. The 26-year-old, who is set to break into the top-100 following his Chennai Open win on Sunday, is seeded two this week.
He faces France's Geoffrey Blancaneaux (ranked 265) in the first hurdle. Nagal had recently defeated the Frenchman in the Australian Open qualifiers and holds a 3-0 head-to-head advantage.
In the doubles' section, Dan Added of France and his partner Yun Seong Chung of Korea have been given the top billing while Piotr Matuszewski of Poland and Matthew Christopher Romios of Australia are the number two seeds. There are nine Indians in the doubles main draw with N Sriram Balaji seeded the best among them at three with his German partner Andre Begemann.
Results: Qualifying round (prefix denotes seeding, Indians unless mentioned)): 2-Dan Added (Fra) bt Karan Singh 7(3)-6, 5-7, 7(9)-6; 4-S Vincent Ruggeri (Ita) bt Sasikumar Mukund 6-4, 6-3; 7-Eric Vanshelboim (Ukr) bt Siddarth Vishwakarma 6-4, 6-4; 1-Bernard Tomic (Aus) bt Niki Poonacha 6-3, 6-4; 8-Yun Seong Chung (Kor) bt Adil Kalyanpur 6-4, 6-3.