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Yes this might be a blessing in disguise. What happens to the Chennai challenger though? Hope they keep it after the Pune open so that our players get 2 weeks in a row followed by Dubai and Davis Cup qualifiers which has now been shifted to first week of March

Pune Open will become a less important event if it is played AFTER ran than before BEFORE the Australian Open.

Looks like ITF tennis body learned a lesson?

ITF, WTA and ATP deliver optimised pro tennis structure

These changes make sense. It appears that the ITF events now have points but have fewer points than before where you could get 18 points for the 15K events.

I think the challenger event points are also too generous when compared to those of the ATP 250 events, so perhaps they should also rationalize between them. For example, making a ATP 250 QF only gets you 45 points where you typically have to beat a top 100 and top 50 player. Whereas making the final of the lowest level challenger gets you 48 points where you typically don't have to beat anyone in the top 100.

Bangaluru open challenger will be back in the ATP calender and will be in the highest prize money bracket this time for challengers this time-

Bengaluru Open Returns To ATP Challenger Tour After A Year's Gap

It will be held in the week after Pune Open in February. So, the field is expected to be tough. Not sure if Chennai challenger which was held at this time last year will continue. We will have to wait for challenger calendar on ATP side to be updated to see.

When will the Feb list be out? Is there a deadline for these sort of things? Jan list was out on 8 November

RohitG wrote: ↑Wed Nov 13, 2019 8:41 am When will the Feb list be out? Is there a deadline for these sort of things? Jan list was out on 8 November

Usually it come out 3 months in advance before 10th of the month. So, usually February challenger calendar would have been out by now. But, anyway Chennai Challenger appears to be cancelled this year and Bangalore open is replacing it as per this report -

Bengaluru Open to replace Chennai Open Challenger in 2020

Just found on twitter, Feb challengers?

Not confirmed though but I think that's it. Contrary to our hopes that there will be a 3 week swing after Pune, there's just one in Bangalore. No tour event and no challenger event either in Asia in the week of Feb 17.

Terrible news. AITA has totally dropped the ball again. The number of tournaments hosted by India continues to shrink rapidly.

ATP added 4 more one time ATP tournaments in in October -

ATP Announces Four New Events For 2020

So, it is a packed ATP calender in October now. After French open, 3 ATP tournaments each of the next 2 weeks and 2 in the week after that.

Dinesh wrote: ↑Sat Jan 23, 2021 6:51 pm So, there are 7 junior ITF tournaments scheduled to be conducted in the first three months of 2021 and AITA can’t encourage state tennis bodies to find sponsors for pro tennis?

You get your wish.

There are now 4 mens 15K futures ( Lucknow, Indore, Pune,Delhi) and 2 womens futures( 10K in Delhi and 25K in Pune) in March on AITA calender. First of those 2 mens futures are still not on ITF calender. Hoepfully, they will be updated there soon. In any case, looks like we will finally have pro tennis in India soon.

Yes!! This will help the bunch of our guys who are playing qualifying in Egypt $15K tournaments. And, I hope no foreigner comes in to play. We don’t need them to steal points and money from us.

Yes, yes, and again.... Yes!!

Good that Futures will resume, but what our current crop of talent requires are Challengers! We really need to hold some big-ticket Challengers soon.

(Source - via ITD)... Looks like AITA decided to cancel the two $25K ITF events that were supposed to happen in Jhajjar citing coronavirus concerns. That sucks for players who were planning to play there, including Ankita who now may have to depend on either a wildcard or an on-site sign in at the US $80K or the Europe ITFs, as she has withdrawn from these tournaments hoping to stay at the Jhajjar list. This was really bad timing since today was supposed to be the official withdrawal deadline.