Soldering gets top billing in Chennai Open

Chennai, Nov 26 : Robin Soldering of Sweden will be the top seed at the Aircel $450,000 ATP Chennai Open tennis tournament to be held here Jan 4-10.

Soldering, who ended Rafael Nadal's unbeaten run at the French Open earlier this year, is ranked ninth in the world while American Kim Kevin is the lowest ranked ATP player at 111 amongst the 25 players who have made the direct entrants list.

Last year's finalist Somdev Devvarman and Australian Open Junior champion, 17-year old Yuki Bhambri will receive wild card entries.

Besides Soldering, the Chennai Open field includes defending champion Marin Cilic (14) and Stanislas Wawrinka (21) besides 15 top-100 ranked players.

Addressing a Media conference here Thursday, Ravi Krishnan, Senior Vice President, IMG worldwide and owners of the Chennai Open, said arrangements will be made to provide tight security to the participating players.

"Four Americans and one Israeli player have confirmed participation in the event. This is also the first time that many Americans have expressed their desire to visit the city.

"It is significant that we are launching the event today on 26/11. In fact, the event this year was hosted successfully without any hitch despite the security concerns.

"There is no room for any security issues for the 2010 event. Every minutest detail in this regard has been addressed to and R.K. Raghavan, former Director of the CBI, will be heading the Security officials, besides the local police authorities," he said.

Karti Chidambaram, Vice President, AITA and Chairman, Organising Committee, said: "This unique tournament is the only one on the tour to involve government, private sector and public. With the Aircel as the title sponsors, the event would be held in grandest manner as compared to the earlier years."

During the event, members of the the Indian team of 1960 which made the Davis Cup final for the first time, Ramanathan Krishnan, S.P. Misra and Jaideep Mukherjea as also the brother of late Premjit Lal, the other member of the team, would be honoured on the Centre Court, he said.

M.A. Alagappan, President, TNTA, said during a video conference from London that the strong field further enhances the popularity and recognition of the tournament among the tennis fans and set an unparalleled benchmark in South Asia.

Following are the 25 direct entrants for the main draw of 32 event (ranking in brackets and the first eight players are seeded in that order):

Robin Soldering (Sweden-9), Marin Cilic (Croatia-14), Stanislas Wawrinka (Switzerland-21), Janko Tipsarevic (Serbia-38), Dudi Sela (Israel-43), Simon Gruel (Germany-59), Rajveen Ram (USA-80), Lukas Lacko (Slovak-83), Michael Russell (USA-84), Rainer Schuettler (Germany-86), Yen Hsun Lu (Taipei-96), Robby Gingepri (USA-97), Michael Berrer (Germany-100), Denis Istomin (Uzbek-101), Jan Hajek (Czech-102), Igor Kunitsyn (Russia-103), Marcel Granollers (Spain-104), Robin Haase (Netherlands-105), Teimuraz Gabashvili (Russia-106), Santiago Giraldo (Colombia-107), Stephane Robert (France-108), Santiago Ventura (Spain-109) and Kim Kevin (USA-111).