Some of the familiar names will be competing in the qualifying event of the Fenesta National tennis championship at the DLTA Complex from Saturday.
Even though Anurag Nenwani will be the top seed in a draw of 64, from which eight qualifiers will make it to the men’s main draw, the focus will be on Arjun Kadhe who needed a wild card to enter the qualifying event. Arjun had finished runner-up in the national championship and had been performing well in the international circuit in recent weeks in Chennai and Coimbatore.
The fact that the system of wild cards for the main draw had been stopped by the national federation has not helped the cause of such quality players, with champion potential. Two “special exempt” slots for the main draw have also been given to the toppers in the entry list of qualifiers, in a “merit” driven system.
The other notable name is the Asian junior champion Nitin Kumar Sinha, apart from the best ranked junior who competed in the Grand Slams this season, Siddhant Banthia.
Dhruv Sunish, Sai Saran Reddy, Anirudh Chandrasekar, PC Vignesh, Saurav Sukul, Udayan Bhakar, Chinmaya Dev Chauhan, Prithvi Sekhar, the boy who won the mixed doubles bronze in the Deaflympics, Sivadeep Kosaraju, Abhishek Gaur, Parikshit Somani, BR Nikshep, Yugal Bansal will be some of the other leading players fighting for the qualifying slots.
The women’s qualifying draw also has a series of familiar names like Aarthi Muniyan, Kaavya Sawhney, Tanisha Kashyap, Muskan Gupta, Shivani Aminini, Sai Dedeepya, Prinkle Singh, Shivani Manjanna, Snehal Mane and Humera Shaikh.
With all the 16 players in the women’s draw getting a bye, they will need to win two rounds to make the main event.
The final qualifying round will be best of three tie-break sets, and the earlier rounds will be decided on best of 17 games.
With the juniors focusing on the men’s and women’s events, the younger lot will attempt to qualify in the concurrently held under-18 events.
In 1999, the stylish left-hander Sunil Kumar won through an extended qualifying draw of 256 before crowning himself as the national men’s champion at the age of 16.
Sriram Balaji, Vishnu Vardhan, Yuki Bhambri, Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan and Saketh Myneni are some of the players, who had utilised the opportunity in the national championship in recent years to sharpen their confidence and brighten their career.