Defending champions Vishnu Vardhan and Riya Bhatia head the entries list for men and women in the Fenesta National tennis championship, scheduled to be held at the DLTA Complex here from October 2.
While many of the former champions, like V.M. Ranjeet, Nitten Kirrtane, Mohit Mayur and Vijay Kannan also feature in the tournament, there is also a bunch of hungry youngsters like Sasi Kumar Mukund, Sidharth Rawat and Karunuday Singh trying to get their name on the trophy.
It will be a very strong field in the women’s event as well, with names like Dhruthi Venugopal, Y. Pranjala, Zeel Desai, Eetee Maheta, former champion Rutuja Bhosale and four-time champion Prerna Bhambri on the acceptance list.
Mahak Jain, Mihika Yadav, Snehadevi Reddy, Shweta Rana, Sai Samhitha, Nidhi Chilumula will be the other leading players, apart from Bhuvana Kalva who is one of the few players to have won an ITF women’s singles title.
The junior boys’ and girls’ events will also be held concurrently in the first week of the tournament while the second week will feature the under-16 and under-14 events.
Asian junior champion Nitin Kumar Sinha spearheads the juniors list, followed by Siddhant Banthia, Dhruv Sunish, Parikshit Somani and Abhimanyu Vannem Reddy who had won the Roland Garros wild card event in Paris, apart from the former British under-14 champion Sacchitt Sharma.
Akanksha Bhan, Vaidehi Chaudhari, Tanisha Kashyap and Salsa Aher will be the leading players in the junior girls section.
The men’s and women’s winners will earn ₹300,000 each, and the runners-up ₹200,000. The champions also stand to win government grants.