Yuki leads Indian challenge at Chennai Open

Rising star Yuki Bhambri will spearhead the Indian challenge in a fairly strong field, comprising defending champion and world number four Stanislas Wawrinka among others , for the Aircel Chennai Open scheduled from January 4 to 10 here.
Yuki, the country's leading singles player, broke into the top-100 earlier this year. He reached a career-high of 88 earlier this month, before closing the year at an impressive 91.
In fact, an exceptional line-up of top talent will be on display in the USD 480,000 event that continues to be South Asia's only and India's premier ATP tournament.
Cutting off at 94, the impressive player field for the region's most exciting and hard-fought tennis tournament will see Wawrinka, Chennai-debutant World No. 12 Kevin Anderson, World no. 19 and ATP's Comeback Player Of The Year 2015 Benoit Paire, World No. 25 Roberto Bautista-Agut, Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, Gilles Muller, Vasek Pospisil, Borna Coric and Aljaz Bedene representing nine players from among the top 50 in the world.

At the forefront will be two-time Grand Slam champion, Wawrinka, who will defend his title in his eighth visit to Chennai, looking to claim a hat-trick of championship wins come January.
In June this year, Wawrinka won his second Grand Slam - the French Open - at Roland Garros against World No. 1 Novak Djokovic.

Wawrinka won four titles during the year, and qualified for the year-ending ATP World Tour Finals for the third year in a row, reaching the semi-finals in all his appearances at London.
Current world no. 12 and big serving, Kevin Anderson, will be making his debut in Chennai. The top-ranked South African player will start the new season on the back of a career high top-10 ranking in 2015, and a maiden entry in the quarter-finals of the US Open after defeating current world No. 2 Andy Murray.

Towering at a staggering 6'8'', Anderson will be looking to avenge his defeat with a possible clash with defending champion Wawrinka at Chennai.
Later Thursday, defending women's champion Serena
Williams continues her campaign to win a 22nd Grand Slam title and equal the record set by Steffi Graf.
The 34-year-old top seed faces world number 81 Teliana Pereira of Brazil who has never got beyond the second round of a Grand Slam.
- Venus follows Serena -
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Venus Williams follows her sister on Court Suzanne Lenglen against American compatriot Louisa Chirico.
The 20-year-old Chirico, ranked at 78 in the world, came through qualifying and won her first match at the Grand Slam level by beating fellow American Lauren Davis in the opening round.

Also reaching the third round on Thursday were 2010 semi-finalist Tomas Berdych, the seventh seeded Czech, who defeated Malek Jaziri of Tunisia 6-1, 2-6, 6-2, 6-4.
Latvia's Ernests Gulbis, who beat Federer on his way to the semi-finals in 2014, made the last-32 with a 6-2, 7-5, 6-3 win over Portugal's 26th seed Joao Sousa.
But going out was Australian 20th seed Bernard Tomic, beaten 3-6, 6-2, 7-6 (7/4), 7-6 (8/6) by Croatian 19-year-old Borna Coric.
Serbian 14th seed Ana Ivanovic, the 2008 winner, defeated Japan's Kurumi Nara 7-5, 6-1.
Dutchwoman Kiki Bertens followed up her first round win over Australian Open champion Angelique Kerber by beating Camila Giorgi of Italy 6-4, 6-1.

Swiss eighth seed Timea Bacsinszky, a semi-finalist last year, defeated Canada's Eugenie Bouchard 6-4, 6-4.