Fringe Players embrace and laud ATT

After scoring a dominant win in the tournament opener, top seed Vishnu Vardhan hailed the ambitious Asian Tennis Tour (ATT), launched by ATF.
Vardhan thrashed Tenzin Dorji from Bhutan 6-1 6-1 in the opening round.
Dorji, junior Indian Davis Cupper Adil Kalyanpur and Cambodia's Kenny Bun released balloons in presence of Asian Tennis Federation (ATF) President Anil Khanna to mark the opening ceremony.
Khanna said it is their sincere endeavour to help the Asian players, who struggle to make money in the demanding tennis world.
"Only top-100 players are making money in today's tennis world. We are trying to help our Asian players by offering them decent money," Mr Khanna said.

He also said that five players to be picked from ATT for IPTL will earn great experience apart from getting chances to get wild cards for ITF Futures and ATP Challengers.

Vardhan said it would have been great if such an initiative was launched a decade back.
"The Asian Tennis Tour is a great initiative organised by the AITA and Asian Tennis Federation. It helps in the two ways; it's a great opportunity in terms of transition when you make from juniors to men's and also for other players who want to make extra money which they can use for training and travelling purposes in terms of lack of sponsorships," Vardhan said.

"It should have been a great initiative, if it would have been 10 years back that could have been much easier for me to make my transition from juniors to men's but nevertheless sports is improving right now and I would like to thank Anil Khanna sir for this beautiful initiative at this right moment when the ITF has made the change in the prize money and where there are not going to be anymore USD 10,000 from next year and it's a welcome change, where many Asian countries would find it tough to get sponsors to organise the USD 15,000 tournament which is minimum in futures events. So, now they can organise the ATT and can benefit their own players.