Tipsarevic, Wawrinka, Youzhny and Fognini to play in Chennai Open

Chennai: Defending champion Janko Tipsarevic along with world number 8 Stanislas Wawrinka, Mikhail Youzhny (15) and Fabio Fognini (16) will compete in the 19th edition of the Aircel Chennai Open, starting December 30 here.

A total of 21 players from the draw released here today are ATP ranked between eight and 89, in addition to four qualifiers and three wild cards for the India`s only ATP World Tour tennis event. Marcel Granollers (38), Edouard Roger-Vasselin (52), Roberto Bautista Agut (59), Guillermo Garcia-Lopez (63), Pablo Carreno Busta (65), Yen-Hsun Lu (66) are in the middle of the draw list. Dudi Sela (72), Benjamin Becker (78), Lukas Lacko (81), Albert Ramos (82), Jiri Vesely (84), Julian Reister (85), Aljaz Bedene (88) and Tim Smyczek (89) are also in the list. The prize money for the international tennis Open here between Dec 30, 2013 and January 5, 2014 is 4,50,000 USD. The Tamil Nadu government has contributed Rs two crore for the event, which has a consortium of sponsors. Qualifying matches will be on Dec 28 and 29, while the men`s main draw would be between Dec 30 and Jan 5, 2014. Tipsarevic won the singles title, Wawrinka and Benoit Paire won the doubles title for 2013 Chennai Open. Three time Wimbledon champion Boris Becker, 1998 French Open winner Carlos Moya, Marin Cilic and Indian stars Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi have earlier played in the Chennai Open.