Chennai: French Open finalist Robin Soderling of Sweden has been given the top billing at the ATP
Chennai Open to be held here from January 4-10 next year.
Last year`s winner and world number 14 Marin Cilic of
Croatia has been seeded second at the 15th edition of the
event, which will witness a very the strongest field this year
with the cut being 111 for the direct entry.
World number nine Soderling, who defeated Rafael Nadal at
the French Open this year, is the highest ranked player among
the 25 direct entrants.
India`s young sensation Somdev Devvarman, who ended
runner-up last year, and junior Australian Open champion Yuki
Bhambri, are expected to get wild card entries.
Ravi Krishnan, Senior Vice President, IMG worldwide while
launching the event promised tight security arrangements.
"It is significant that we are launching the event today
on 26/11 (Mumbai terror attacks). 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. RK Raghavan, former CBI Director, will be heading the
security officials," he said.
Karti Chidambaram, Vice President, AITA and Chairman,
Organising Committee said the event would also be an occasion
to honour the Indian team of 1960 which made the Davis Cup
final for the first time.
Ramanathan Krishnan, S P Misra, Jaideep Mukherjea, and
brother of late Premjit Lal, members of the team, would be
honoured on January 9, he said.
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 Soderling (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).
PTI