Maharashtra players Arjun Kadhe and Aryan Goveas received the first main draw wild cards for the ATP Pune Challenger which will be held at the Mhalunge-Balewadi tennis complex from 17 to 24 November. The other two wildcards will be decided soon, based on the results of the ongoing Bengaluru Open.
Apart from Davis Cuppers Ramkumar Ramnathan and Prajnesh Gunneswaran, who qualified for the main draw on virtue of their high ranking, and four Indian wild cards, the organisers expect a couple of more Indians to come from the qualifying draw. There could be two special exempt players as well, depending on where the Indians finish in Bengaluru.
Among the doubles players, all Indian players will be in action with the exception of Rohan Bopanna and Divij Sharan who are in the world top 50.
The $50000 KPIT-MSLTA Challenger is organised by the Maharashtra State Lawn Tennis Association and PMDTA. Andrei Kornilov of Uzbekistan has been nominated ATP Supervisor for the event, while Nitin Kannanwar will be the ATP Referee.
The qualifying rounds will be played on November 17 and 18 followed by the main draw which begins on November 19.
The winner of the ATP Challenger will get $7,200 (Rs 5,25,000) and gain 80 ATP points, while the runner up will get $4,053 (Rs 2,95,000) and 55 ATP points, a media release said.
Following are the probable seeds: 1 Radu Albot, (MDA 86), 2 Ramkumar Ramanathan, (IND 121), 3. Elias Ymer (SWE 132), 4. Marc Polmans (AUS 137), 5. Prajnesh Gunneswaran, (IND 142), 6. Jay Clarke, (GBR 175), 7. Hiroki Moriya, (JPN 187), 8. Andrej Martin, (SVK 189).