| MUMBAI:
The Chennai Open, India’s only ATP Tour event and the premier tennis tournament
of South Asia, will be available live and exclusive on Ten Sports, the most watched
sports channel in the Sub-continent. The
week-long tournament has attracted a star-studded field that boasts of two players
who are, or have been, in Top 10, and eight players who were in the Top 50 in
the year 2008. As many as 15 players are inside top-100, thus making it one of
the most impressive fields in the 14-year history of the Chennai Open.
Live telecast
starts Monday, January 5, and the final is scheduled for Sunday, January 11. Telecast
of the first three days of the tournament will start at 6:00 pm IST, while Day
4 and 5 action will start at 7:30 pm IST. The semi-finals and the finals on January
10 and 11 will start at 8:30 pm IST. Leading
the field is ‘The Machine’, World No 5, Nikolay Davydenko of Russia,
who ended the year on a high note by reaching the finals of the Tennis Masters
in Shanghai. He is joined by the current World No 13 Stanislas Wawrinka of Switzerland,
who won the 2008 Beijing Olympics Gold Medal in Doubles with Roger Federer.
Completing
the star-brigade in singles draw are World No 23, Marin Cilic of Croatia, who
reached the semi-finals in both singles and doubles at Chennai Open 2008; World
No 26, Ivo Karlovic, also of Croatia, and World No 33 Rainer Schuettler of Germany,
who reached the 2008 Wimbledon semi-finals. Two
former Chennai Open champions - crowd favorite and two-time Chennai Open champion
(2004-2005), former World No Carlos Moya of Spain will be returning for his favourite
tournament, along with former World No 3 and 2006 Chennai Open champion Ivan Ljubicic
of Croatia. The
Indian contingent is a perfect combination of youth and experience. India’s
top two ranked players, Somdev Devvarman and Prakash Amritraj, will feature in
the singles draw. Mahesh Bhupathi and Leander Paes have entered the doubles event
with their respective partners. Also featuring is the young rising Indian tennis
star, Yuki Bhambri and Harsh Mankad, a Davis Cup regular for India. | 