$15K+H ITF Futures, Chennai (March 21)

[jayakris]

Here is the entry list:

1 QURESHI, Aisam PAK 224
2 GREUL, Simon GER 238
3 DELGADO, Jamie GBR 246
4 FITZ, Sebastian GER 257
5 SHERWOOD, David GBR 273
6 OP DER HEIJDE, Melvyn NED 281
7 MLYNARIK, Zbynek AUT 285
8 MANKAD, Harsh IND 303
9 HEMMES, Fred Jr. NED 324
10 EITZINGER, Rainer AUT 329
11 CEROVIC, Ivan CRO 346
12 SIPAEYA, Sunil-Kumar IND 349
13 AMRITRAJ, Prakash IND 360
14 PATRIARCA, Damian ARG 369
15 CAPKOVIC, Kamil SVK 373
16 KHAN, Aqeel PAK 377
17 POPP, Thorsten GER 392
18 TAINO, Eric USA 401

Alternates

19 HERM-ZAHLAVA, Jakub GER 406
20 GRUBER, Konstantin AUT 418
21 HASEK, Jakub CZE 452
22 IM, Kyu-Tae KOR 454
23 SMIRNOV, Evgueni RUS 455
24 RETTENMAIER, Travis USA 456
25 STOLIAROV, Andrei RUS 471
26 SMIT, Jasper NED 483
27 BOZOLJAC, Ilia SCG 496 1
28 JUNQUEIRA, Diego ARG 498
29 KLAASEN, Raven RSA 503
30 KANNAN, Vijay IND 508
31 UPPAL, Vishal IND 527
32 KWON, Chris USA 528
33 MONROE, Nick USA 537
34 GIL, Frederico POR 549 2
35 STANCIK, Jan SVK 574 2
36 SRIDHAR, Vinod IND 576
37 RAMASWAMI, Ajay IND 588
38 LIU, Tai-Wei TPE 595
39 MAYER-TISCHER, Peter GER 613
40 KODERISCH, Christopher GER 652 2
41 BORGULA, Boris SVK 687
42 BOPANNA, Rohan IND 688
43 JUN, Woong-Sun KOR 713
44 NESTICKY, Josef CZE 736
45 FASS, Adam USA 739=
46 THOMPSON, Adam NZL 756
47 SATSCHKO, Alexander GER 759 3
48 HANLIN, Matthew GBR 785
49 KILIAN, Floris NED 794 1
50 FASCHING, Andreas AUT 798 3
51 RASTOGI, Karan IND 817
52 PATHANJALI, Ravi-Shankar IND 821
53 KANNAN, Kamala IND 848=
54 KALLIAS, Fotos CYP 850 3
55 MATHEW, Jaco IND 877
56 SOMOV, Andrei RUS 881=
57 CHANG, Kai-Lung TPE 885=
58 OGORODOV, Oleg UZB 906
59 EGGER, Markus AUT 933= 1
60 SINGH, Ashutosh IND 963=
61 KUTAC, Roman CZE 983= 1
62 VARSANYI, Michal SVK 983= 2
63 MIOTTO, Alex GBR 999=
64 JURD, Romain FRA 1040=
65 PUNNA, Vishal IND 1065=
66 STATHAM, Jose NZL 1065= 2
67 KIM, Sun-Yong Jr. KOR 1101=
68 KIM, Cheong-Eui KOR 1133= 2
69 KILCHHOFER, Stefan SUI 1133= 3
70 TIERRO, Patrick PHI 1133=
71 KENNAUGH, Andrew GBR 1133=
72 IVANOV, Dmitry UZB 1159=
73 SYED, Rahil IND 1159=
74 PIYAMONGKOL, Philipp GER 1167=
75 KURZ, Michael SUI 1167= 3
76 STOECKLER, Dominic SUI 1201=
77 BROOKS, Richard GBR 1201= 3
78 SHARAN, Divij IND 1216=
79 FURUKAWA, Hayato JPN 1216=
80 NICAU, Goncalo POR 1216= 1
81 WIRE, Richard GBR 1246=
82 SINGH, Gurmehar IND 1246=
83 WALIA, Varun IND 1309=
84 VAN DER WERF, Ordan NED 1309= 1
85 POLASEK, Filip SVK 1356= 1
86 GOUTHAM, Arjun IND 1356=
87 HSIEH, Wang-Cheng TPE 1356=
88 THOMSON, Clinton AUS 1356= 2
89 BELOSEVIC, Goran CRO 1356=
90 SANDBICHLER, Armin AUT 1356=
91 MAMEDKULIEV, Myalikkuli TKM 1473=
92 BIASELLA, Adriano ITA 1473= 2
93 NATHAN, Kris USA 1473= 1
94 SINGH, Saurabh IND 1473=
95 ABELE, Kevin GER 1473= 1
96 MISHRA, Shivang IND 1473=
97 FISCHER, Martin AUT 1473=
98 LI, Ruo-Yang AUS 1473= 2
99 ISHMATOV, Gafur UZB 1473=
100 SCHEIL, Tobias GER 1473= 3
101 LIFSHITS, Mikhail RUS 1473= 2
102 WIESLER, Andre GER 1473= 3
103 STEINER, Christoph AUT 1473=
104 OSWALD, Philipp AUT 1473=
105 SI, Yew-Ming MAS 1473=

Holy crap! .. Just what I feared. Way too many top-300 players, and only three Indians can make the main draw list. On the other hand, not too many clay players there..

Jay

[jayakris]

... And I am not even going to get into who should get wildcards ..

Jay

[Kumar]

I was hoping to see lot of Indian players in action.. !!!

[Sandeep]

Man, don't worry. I think Bopanna will be getting a wild card there.

[jaydeep]

Wow thats hell of tough entry list ... Gruel back on Indian circuit ...

Its interesting to see who gets wildcards as Rohan, Karan, Vijay, Vinod and lots of others in line to get wildcards ... But definetly this turn out to be very tough $15K+ futures for Indians ... Becoz of clay surface right now Gruel is in hot seat to win this.

Jaydeep.

[jayakris]

I guess Rohan, Karan are the two most probable ones. Take your pick on who gets the 3rd. The one I would give it to would be Vinod Sridhar if he is healthy, because he has done well on clay. Vijay/Vishal/Ajay etc may be candidates. If I were to guess, it would go to Vivek Shokeen or Vishal Uppal, if left to AITA. As the event is in Chennai, I would expect Jeevan to get that 3rd wildcard, and AITA would not have a problem with that either .. I suppose one wildcard is left to the local organizers. May be Vijay Kannan would be their pick. I just don't see Ajay getting one.

In other words, I have no clue

Jay

[jaydeep]

Yes ur mentioned possibilities r high ... Rohan and Karan will get ... Interesting to see who gets third one ... But Jay I was thinking Vivek and Jeevan must be busy in their studies/exams so mostly they skip these futures ... But from ur message it looks they r playing ... If they r playing I would luv to see Jeevan gets third wild card.

Jaydeep.

[Kumar]

Is there qualifiers for the 15K? If so where does the entry close?

[amr090]

wow that list is insanely tough! why the hell is aisam ranked at 224 playing futures??? easy points?? that makes no sense. go play challengers guy.

[PKBasu]

Incredibly strong field for a Futures, loaded with European clay courters from Germany, Netherlands, Austria, etc. Of course there are the occasional non-clay-court types like Aisam and David Sherwood, but this is still an incredibly strong field. AITA's insanity in playing this on clay has been thoroughly exposed.
A $15K+H Futures is really equivalent to a $25K Challenger, and this field fully reflects that. Aisam (like Harsh and Prakash) could have chosen to fly half-way around the world to play the Challengers in Mexico, but that would have required visas (and spending money on flights). I think they all decided it made more sense to fly the short distance to Chennai and Bangalore instead. Greul is understandably upbeat about playing on Indian clay -- he has hardly taken a false step on the stuff so far.

[sramu]

Kumar
Yes. There is qualifying. 8 qualifiers from a total of 64 entrants winning 3 rounds. 3 wild cards probably and 61 entrants from those who sign in.

[jayakris]

This comes at a time when the challenger entries are so hard, with people playing a lot more during the first 4-5 months of the year.

I think Aisam got screwed. He could have played any of the three clay challengers. He does not like clay much, and that must be why he decided to play this, thinking it would be on hardcourts (Yes, top250 players quite often do play these $15K+H events -- there are only few such futures in the circuit. Some in France, etc).

Aisam could have entered for the challengers by last monday (Feb 1st, for the Feb 21st week when there are 3 clay challengers). Chose not to, because of the India futures. Then, 4 days before the entry deadline this monday, the surface got switched to clay. Very unfair towards somebody like Aisam. I bet he would not have come, had he knew it was going to be on clay. I am sure he would have gone to one of those 4 challengers had he known that Chennai was switching to clay too. May have made visa plans which were tough to change too, though.

Now, if they switch Bangalore also to clay, I know there will be some really upset players who would lose two of their weeks, wasting time on mud they don't want to play on.

The $25K+H Leon challenger on Mar 28th (on hard court) closed at #171 this monday! -- that is how tough it is to get into some of these challengers right now, with ATP having a totally sparse calendar as far as challengers are concerened. The other challenger on Mar 28th, 100K+H Napoli on clay closed at #121. So, Aisam would have no choice but to enter Bangalore for Mar 28th (deadline this coming monday). he would have preferred ONE week (Mar 21st) at the $50K San Luis Potosi in Mexico, followed by qualies at Leon (MX) on hard courts the week after, to playing two clay events in India. So, go easy on Asiam. Let us look at what these players go through [but then, he would need a visa to Mexico, which seems to require 6 weeks of planning!]

For God's sake, have some pity on the players and please do not sitch Bangalore also to clay. There are clay events all over the world, and these guys like Aisam, Greul, Delgado, Sherwood etc are not coming to India to play on clay. To switch surfaces 5 days before the deadline with these guys having not much other options is very unfair.

ITF still shows "hard" for Bangalore. That could change if what sramu heard is correct.

ITF definitely should not allow futures surfaces to be changed in the last week, after the players have decided against entering challengers for the same week. At least 10 day notice should be definitely there. But ITF even allowed India to change $25K to $25K+H AFTER the entry deadline last year for the satellites, so somehow India gets away with all these things! -- AITA keeps good relations with ITF I suppose

Jay

[Red_Indian]

Have we heard anything at all on why the change was made (to the surface) ?

[jayakris]

I assume TNTA in Chennai had some reason to sitch it to another venue .. I haven't heard any official word on this.

Jay

[Nate]

I am all excited about following Harsh playing on clay. I don't know anything about how he is on clay. My bet is, he will be the top of our lot and would give anybody a good run for their money.