Wild cards for Kadhe, Goveas at Challenger Tennis

Local boys Arjun Kadhe and Aryan Goveas have been awarded main draw singles wild cards at the KPIT men's Challenger tennis startinghere Saturday.

The tournament is to be held at the Mhalunge-Balewadi tenniscomplex and will conclude on November 24.

Apart from Davis Cuppers Ramkumar Ramnathan and Prajnesh Gunneswaran,who have entry into the main singles draw on their own ranking strength, and four Indian wild cards, the organisers expect a couple of more Indians to come from the qualifying draw.

Andrei Kornilov of Uzbekistan has been nominated ATP Supervisor for the event, while Nitin Kannanwar will be the ATP Referee.

The qualifying rounds will be played on November 17 and 18 followed by the main draw which begins on November 19.

The semifinals and doubles final is scheduled for November 23.

The winner of the ATP Challenger will get USD 7,200 (Rs 5,25,000) and gain 80 ATP points, while the runner up will get USD 4,053 (Rs 2,95,000) and 55 ATP points, a media release said.

Following are the probable seeds: 1 Radu Albot, (MDA 86), 2 Ramkumar Ramanathan, (IND 121), 3. Elias Ymer (SWE 132), 4. Marc Polmans (AUS 137), 5. Prajnesh Gunneswaran, (IND 142), 6. Jay Clarke, (GBR 175), 7. Hiroki Moriya, (JPN 187), 8. Andrej Martin, (SVK 189).