The TATA Open Tennis Championships, India’s largest global tennis event, gets underway at Nungambakkam Stadium in Chennai from 30 December to 5 January 2003. ESPN will telecast live and exclusive coverage of the event. The event is India’s (and South Asia's) only ATP International Series event, one of the seven in the whole of Asia.

The tournament will feature Mark Philippoussis from Australia, the TATA Open 2002 runner-up and world No. 16; Paradorn Srichaphan from Thailand; Thomas Johansson (Sweden); Fabrice Santoro (France); Andrei Pavel (Romania); Dominik Hrbaty (Slovakia); and Sjeng Schalken (Holland). Leander Paes, India’s own wild card entrant and the highest ranked Indian in world tennis today, will also participate. Also playing is Rohan Bopanna, a big serving 22-year-old from Bangalore who is currently No. 1 in the AITA rankings.

In the doubles category, the defending doubles champions: Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi will be playing with different partners. Bhupathi will partner Australia’s Todd Woodbridge - the duo together has 100 ATP doubles titles to their credit. Paes will pair with David Rikl from the Czech Republic, who is ranked No. 20 in the ATP Doubles rankings.

The doubles draw is also scheduled to feature the sons of Indian tennis legends Vijay and Anand Amritraj - Prakash Amritraj and Stephen Amritraj, who will be playing doubles in an ATP tournament in India for the first time.

The schedule is as follows: