Asian Tennis Tour | Siddharth Vishwakarma, Niki Poonacha to lead India’s challenge
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Indian tennis players Siddharth Vishwakarma and Niki Poonacha will lead the court at the $3000 RBLATT Asian Ranking Men’s Tennis Championships which will begin in Mumbai from April 22. This is the first event of the Asian Tennis Tour which has been launched by the Asian Tennis Federation.
With an aim to safeguard the interest of the tennis players of the continent, the Asian Tennis Federation has launched Asian Tennis Tour Championship. The first event of the men’s championship in this newly-launched competition is the upcoming $3000 RBLATT Asian ranking men’s tennis championships which will be played in Mumbai.Â
National champion Vishwakarma and ATP-ranked Poonacha will lead the field in the event in India. With the main event scheduled to be played from the 22nd of this month, Saturday and Sunday will see the qualifying rounds for the championship.Â
 “The recently-launched ITF World Tennis Tour, the cap in ATP/WTA points at the lower level tournaments along with reduced number of professional tournaments in India at the lower end, are all quite disruptive changes, filled with uncertainties and doubts about the future of our sport and the new ATT circuit will help our young tennis players immensely,” said Sunder Iyer, secretary of the Maharashtra State Lawn Tennis Association, reported Scroll.
According to DS Rama Rao, the tournament director, only singles matches with 32 ties in the main draw and 64 in the qualifying round will be played in the first event. The champion will be awarded 50, 75 and 100 points in the ATT international events and the points will also be converted into AITA points simultaneously. The winner will be presented a cash award of Rs.31,000 while the runners up will get Rs. 20,000.
Seedings: 1 Niki Poonacha, 2 Jatin Dahiya, 3 Siddarth Vishwakarma, 4 Shahbaaz Khan, 5 Vasisht Cheruku, 6 Chandril Sood, 7 Tejas Chaukulkar, 8 Prithvi Sekhar.
