$546K Tata Open Maharashtra, Pune, Feb 3-9,2020

[sameerph]

Entry list is out for Pune ATP event and it is one of the weakest fields one has seen in these Chennai/Pune tournaments. The change in dates has really hurt the entries for this event.

1. Paire, Benoit FRA 24
2. Berankis Ricardas LTU 66
3. Kohlschreiber, Philipp GER 79
4. Travaglia, Stefano ITA 81
5. Kwon, Soonwoo KOR 88
6. Stebe, Cedrik-Marcel GER 95 PR
7. Karlovic, Ivo CRO 95
8. Caruso, Salvatore ITA 96
9. Gerasimov, Egor BLR 98
10. Duckworth, James AUS 100
11. Majchrzak, Kamil POL 101
12. Sugita, Yuichi JPN 103
13. Vesely, Jiri CZE 105
14. Daniel, Taro JPN 110
15. Donskoy, Evgeny RUS 112
16. Fabbiano, Thomas ITA 114
17. Lorenzi, Paolo ITA 115
19. Hoang, Antoine FRA 116
19. Gojowczyk, Peter GER 117
20. Special Exempt
21. Special Exempt
22. Wild Card
23. Wild Card
24. Wild Card
25. Qualifier
26. Qualifier
27. Qualifier
28. Qualfier

Alternates
Go Soeda JPN 121
Prajnesh Gunneswaran IND 124
Yannik Maden 126
Sumit Nagal 130

There is only 1 top 50 player in the entry list - Benoit Paire who has regularly entered these Indian tournaments. The seeding will go down all the way to #98 as of now. Prajnesh and Sumit are 2 and 4 out from the main draw. So, with 2 special exempts there is a decent chance that Prajnesh will get in directly and if there are a couple of withdrawals, Sumit will also get in.

[RohitG]

What about Yuki? If Praj can get in, RamK can get a wildcard, most likely Arjun might get one as well.

[sameerph]

If he is really getting back there, Yuki should get one of the wild cards. He can then save his PR for other tournaments then. As Praj should get in directly, 2 of the 3 wild cards would than go to Yuki and Sumit, third one between Arjun and RamK. Of course, there is a chance that with such a weak field, organisers will try to rope in a top 20 player as a wild card.

[Prem]

Entry list is out for Pune ATP event and it is one of the weakest fields one has seen in these Chennai/Pune tournaments. The change in dates has really hurt the entries for this event.

The protests, clashes and political conditions in India could also be a factor??

[jaydeep]

If he is really getting back there, Yuki should get one of the wild cards. He can then save his PR for other tournaments then. As Praj should get in directly, 2 of the 3 wild cards would than go to Yuki and Sumit, third one between Arjun and RamK.

Yuki has announced that he is aiming for returning on the court for the ATP Maharashtra ... I would prefer a qualifying wild-card for Yuki, due to his lack of match practice.

[S_K_S]

A 250 in the week after a slam and competing with Montpellier and Cordoba. About as appealing as leftover breakfast. On the positive side an opportunity for our players to go deep in a 250.

[RohitG]

Exactly. For non-Asians, Montpelier (followed by Rotterdam, Marseille) and Cordoba (followed by Buenos Aires, Rio, Acapulco/Santiago) will be a much better choice purely from a logistical pov. Clay specialists will prefer to play the Latin Swing in Feb. Someone tweeted that a wildcard might be used as an offer to a seeded player who loses early at the AO.

[PKBasu]

If he is really getting back there, Yuki should get one of the wild cards. He can then save his PR for other tournaments then. As Praj should get in directly, 2 of the 3 wild cards would than go to Yuki and Sumit, third one between Arjun and RamK.

Yuki has announced that he is aiming for returning on the court for the ATP Maharashtra ... I would prefer a qualifying wild-card for Yuki, due to his lack of match practice.

Agree. If this is his first tournament back, Yuki should only get a qualifying wildcard. If he has played a Challenger or two beforehand, he could be considered for a main draw wildcard. Not otherwise.

[PKBasu]

But the scheduling is going to be the death knell of this tournament. They should push hard to move it back to its January slot preceding the AO. The graveyard shift will send the tournament to a quick cremation

[sameerph]

But the scheduling is going to be the death knell of this tournament. They should push hard to move it back to its January slot preceding the AO. The graveyard shift will send the tournament to a quick cremation

True, if this kind of entry list continues for a year or two, there may be chances that tournament may get shifted to Europe or US. In any case shift back to before AO looks difficult due to ATP cup which has sprung up at the start of the year.

One good thing is we have at least scheduled a big $125K challenger in Bengaluru the week immediately after this. So, most likely that many of these players will continue to be India for 1 more week and the entry list of that challenger will be much stronger than the usual challengers in India.

[RohitG]

Maybe to get more higher ranked players, they could have had a 125 before Pune as well and try for at least an 80 after the main event. 125 before Pune gets you all the players who exit in first week of AO and you can then have a 3 week Indian swing. It would provide a strong alternative to flying across to Europe/America immediately after AO. Of course it's easier said than done.

[PKBasu]

Having a strong entry list for the Bangalore Challenge is not such a good thing! That’s the one our players should be winning, given their ranking!!

[Omkara]

But the scheduling is going to be the death knell of this tournament. They should push hard to move it back to its January slot preceding the AO. The graveyard shift will send the tournament to a quick cremation

It was about time. 23 years is a long tenure. Unfortunately despite being in its 24th year the money offered is one of the worst on the tour. It has failed to evolve. Unless it gets strong sponsor backing, it won't last long.

But I am happy for what it did to Indian tennis. We did have a runner up once. Lots of doubles winners. A few qualified in to get the much needed moral boost.

A tournament needs to stand on its own. This one did well for a long time.

[RohitG]

The best 3 results in the past decade we got in singles:

Devvarman 2009: Finalist (150 points)
Ramanathan 2015: Quarter-finalist (45 points)
Bhambri 2014: Quarter-finalist (45 points)

All three entered as wildcards.

Rest of the editions, our guys got to R16 at best

[Omkara]

Lee once made it to the SF after skipping Davis Cup on pretext on injury. It has some history to the Hesh-Lee cat fight.