ATP Chennai Open Tennis begins tomorrow, Sumit Nagal leads India's challenge

Chennai, Feb 4 Players from 14 countries will vie for honours in the Chennai Open ATP Challenger 100 Men’s International Tennis Championship 2024 beginning with the main draw matches from tomorrow with India Number one Sumit Nagal leading the hosts' challenge.
The qualifying rounds began here on Sunday.
Davis cupper Sumit Nagal will lead India’s charge in the singles event in week long tournament to be held at the SDAT Tennis stadium here.
Italian Luca Nardi is the top-seed, while Nagal, the highest-ranked Indian player, is seeded second.
Other Indian players Ramkumar Ramanathan and Sasikumar Mukund have been given wildcards for the main draw.
The prize money has been increased to USD 133,250.
Former world number 16 Nikoloz Basilashvili has been given the third wild card, with former Wimbledon quarterfinalist Bernard Tomic also part of the main draw.
After two days of qualifying rounds today and tomorrow, six players will make it to the main draw of 32.
The main draw matches will be held under lights, with games starting at 2 p.m.
The doubles event will feature 16 players in the main draw.
The doubles final will be held on February 10 and the singles final on February 11.
Announcing the field to the media, Tamil Nadu Tennis Association (TNTA) President Vijay Amritraj
and CEO Hiten Joshi said talks were also on with ATP and WTA to get a tour event back to Chennai and the Tamil Nadu government has agreed to support it.
Vijay said in this edition players from 14 countries are participating and the competition is going to be stiff.
"The top seed is 20-year-old Luca Nardi of Italy who has improved his world ranking from 162 last year to 117 this year. A three-time Challenger event winner Luca played in the Next Gen Event held
at Jeddah in 2023. He is no stranger to India as he had been here for the ATP Challenger last year and reached the final at Pune", he added.
Nardi is followed by 26-year-old Sumit Nagal of India, fresh from his upset win over 31st seed Alexander Bublik at the recently concluded Australian Open 2024. Sumit has moved up from 502 in end 2022 to 137 in the rankings currently.
The other seeded players are Psvrcina Dalibor (CZE -165), Vitaliy Sachkov (UKR-168), Stefano Travaglia (ITA-196), Federic Gaio (ITA- 198), Yu Hiou Hsu (TPE-202) and Jacquet Kyrian (FRA-204).
Former world number 17, Bernard Tomic is also expected to participate in this year’s edition making the field that much stronger.
Vijay said the three Main Draw wild cards have been given to Ramkumar Ramanathan, India’s no 2, Mukund Sasikumar India’s no.3 and Nikoloz Basilashvili, 31-year-old Czech player and a former world number 17, who is making a strong comeback.
In the last ATP Challenger event held in 2023 in Chennai, Max Purcell of Australia won the event and went on to do well for himself reaching a career high world ranking of 40 later in 2023 and is now ranked 45.
The Chennai Event is the first of a series of ATP Challenger 100 events to be held in India. It will be followed by events in Bengaluru, Pune, and Delhi.