$50K(+H) Chennai Challenger, 12-18 Feb. 2018

[sameerph]

The entry list came out for Chennai challenger in 3 weeks time-

099 Thompson, Jordan (AUS)
119 Bhambri, Yuki (IND)
133 Granollers, Marcel (ESP)
174 Kwon, Soonwoo (KOR)
176 Milojevic, Nikola (SRB)
195 Lee, Duckhee (KOR)
217 Nagal, Sumit (IND)
223 Safwat, Mohamed (EGY)
224 Lopez-Perez, Enrique (ESP)
237 Uchiyama, Yasutaka (JPN)
240 Maamoun, Karim-Mohamed (EGY)
247 Gunneswaran, Prajnesh (IND)
248 Popko, Dmitry (KAZ)
253 Martinez, Pedro (ESP)
255 Leshem, Edan (ISR)
258 Petrovic, Danilo (SRB)
265 Ilkel, Cem (TUR)
267 Myneni, Saketh (IND)
272 Zapata Miralles, Bernabe (ESP)
275 Nedelko, Ivan (RUS)
276 Purcell, Max (AUS)
277 Coppejans, Kimmer (BEL)

As expected, no RamK. But, Yuki and Sumit are making the trek back from Europe where they would be playing in the earlier week and Saketh has entered with his PR.

[Rajiv]

Very surprised to see a high level of foreign participants.
Wasnt expecting this , and thought it would be swamped by Indian players

[sameerph]

There are 4 Indians in the main draw plus 4 wild cards and hopefully 1-2 qualifiers would still mean about 9-10 Indians in main draw.

But, yes there are a few very tough foreign players ( Thompson, Granollers ) who would be challenging our guys - Yuki and Sumit.

[PKBasu]

31 year old Granollers is playing Challengers in a bid to get back to the top 100 in singles, it seems. He won two Thai Challengers this month, but didn’t play the AO qualifiers. He will be formidable if he comes to Chennai. Now ranked 133.

[knarayen]

31 year old Granollers is playing Challengers in a bid to get back to the top 100 in singles, it seems. He won two Thai Challengers this month, but didn’t play the AO qualifiers. He will be formidable if he comes to Chennai. Now ranked 133.

Good for our guys to be playing these guys hovering around 100-150, the more the better.

[PKBasu]

Granollers has been a top-50 singles player for most of his career -- and was still ranked in the top-50 until 10 months ago. He has a career-high in singles of 19. So he is a solid singles player, but his recent focus on doubles has hurt his singles ranking. He will be a tough one to have in the Chennai draw.

[Rajiv]

Seedings are announced and there is not much change from the top 8 in the Entry list , except the last two spots are swapped as per the latest ranking and the Egyptian Mohamed Safwat takes the 7th spot and Sumeet becomes the 8th seed.

[Rahb]

Mukund Sasikumar, Manish Suresh Kumar, Nitin Kumar Sinha and Vijay Sundar Prashanth have been awarded the wild cards for the Chennai Open Challenger

It is a home tournament for VSP but given that he is already 31 not sure how good it is a decision to award him with a singles WC

[PKBasu]

Fair enough with the distribution of wildcards.

[sameerph]

I think VSP looks to be on the way to becoming a doubles specialist. So, it would have been better if that wild card was given to Arjun Kadhe who is doing well in singles of late.

Rest of the wild cards are quite fair as they are given to talented young players.

[sameerph]

This is the qualifying draw-

(1) Wishaya Trongcharoenchaikul v Bye
Bye v (wc)Gokul Suresh
Dalwinder Singh v Bye
Bye v (7) Haadin Salim Bava

(2) Nikola Cacic v Bye
(wc)Anurag Nenwani v Suraj R. Prabodh
Tyler Hochwalt v Abhinav Sanjeev Shanmugam
Bye v (8) Aryan Goveas

(3) Ulises Blanch v Bye
Jayesh Pungliya v Luca Margaoli
Adil Kalyanpur v (wc)Sandeep Mohandoss
Bye v (6) Arjun Kadhe

(4) Vishnu Vardhan v Bye
Bye v (wc)Ramakrishan Rangaraju
Shahbaaz Khan v Bye
Bye v (5) Sidhardt Rawat

Weak qualifying draw but top 3 seeds are non-Indians. 1 Indian qualifier is guaranteed from last quarter. Hope we get get 1-2 more qualifiers.

Also the way the qualies draw is set with 457th ranked Thai as top seed, the main draw cut seems to have dropped quite a bit. There is no info available these days on menstennisforums or anywhere else on challenger withdrawals. But, it looks like Balaji has made the main draw here, perhaps Sasi too, both of them are ranked higher than Wishaya.

[bujilover]

Someone posted in the MTF that Mukund was the last one to get in. So we have Yuki, Sumit, Prajnesh, Saketh, Balaji, Sasi in the MD.

Granollers is OUT so does some top-8 players.

Main Draw
99 Thompson, Jordan (AUS)
119 Bhambri, Yuki (IND)
133 Granollers, Marcel (ESP)
174 Kwon, Soonwoo (KOR)
176 Milojevic, Nikola (SRB)
195 Lee, Duckhee (KOR)
217 Nagal, Sumit (IND)
223 Safwat, Mohamed (EGY)
224 Lopez-Perez, Enrique (ESP)
237 Uchiyama, Yasutaka (JPN)
240 Maamoun, Karim-Mohamed (EGY)
247 Gunneswaran, Prajnesh (IND)
248 Popko, Dmitry (KAZ)
253 Martinez, Pedro (ESP)
255 Leshem, Edan (ISR)
258 Petrovic, Danilo (SRB)
265 Ilkel, Cem (TUR)
267 Myneni, Saketh (IND)
272 Zapata Miralles, Bernabe (ESP)
275 Nedelko, Ivan (RUS)
276 Purcell, Max (AUS)
277 Coppejans, Kimmer (BEL)

[bujilover]

Arjun and Vishnu should comfortably qualify for MD. Winner of Dalwinder/Bava should be able to upset the top seed here.

[sameerph]

Someone posted in the MTF that Mukund was the last one to get in. So we have Yuki, Sumit, Prajnesh, Saketh, Balaji, Sasi in the MD.

Granollers is OUT so does some top-8 players.

So, now it becomes usual Indian challenger field.

Now, I think Yuki will be second seed, Sumit fifth and Prajnesh 8th.

[Sin Hombre]

Someone posted in the MTF that Mukund was the last one to get in. So we have Yuki, Sumit, Prajnesh, Saketh, Balaji, Sasi in the MD.

Granollers is OUT so does some top-8 players.

So, now it becomes usual Indian challenger field.

Now, I think Yuki will be second seed, Sumit fifth and Prajnesh 8th.

Based on what buji posted above, Sumit should be the 4th seed, right?