Gondwana Cup ITF would commence on Monday at VIP Club here. During the six-day tennis extravaganza, several senior national players will battle out to clinch the trophy, Chhattisgarh State Tennis Association (CSTA) president Vikram Singh Sisodia here on Sunday.
Chief Minister Dr Raman Singh will inaugurate the tournament at 11 am. Governor Shekhar Dutt will also witness doubles final on November 29 and the singles final would be played on November 30.
Sisodia further informed ranked players like Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan (current singles ranking 321), N Sriram (current singles ranking 458) from India, Jung Woong (current singles ranking 499) from Korea, Torsten Wietoska (singles ranking 578) from Germany and Ranjeet Virali-Murugesan (singles ranking 586) from India are likely to be the centre of attraction during the six-day tennis extravaganza. Other international tennis players, who could emerge as surprise are Ramkumar Ramanathan (India), Markos Kalovelonis (Greece), N Vijay Sundar Prashanth (India), Jui Chen Hung (Taipei), Duck Hee lee (Korea), luca Margaroli (Switzerland), Vignesh Peranamallur (India), Fedor Chervyakov (Russia), Vinayak Sharma (India), Ashwin Vijayragavan (India), Jatin Dahiya (India), Timon Reichelt (Germany), Mohit Mayur Jayaprakash (India), Arjun Kadhe (India), David Pel (Netherland), Abhijeet Tiwari, Abdullah Shaikh, Kumar P Saradhi and Prateek Baxi (India).
Further on Sunday eight more players qualified for the main draw matches of the championship. The selected players are Chandril Sood (India), Timur Khabibulin (Kazakhstan), Anvit Bender (India), Shashi Kumar Mukund (India), Adil Akromov (Uzbekistan), Ronit Singh Bisht (India), Ronak Manuja (India) and lakshit Sood (India).
During his interaction with media present on the occasion were CSTA General Secretary Gurucharan Singh Hora, lawrence Santiago, VIP Club Chairman Rakesh Pandey and other office bearers of the CSTA. Notably CSTA is the hosting the championship and Sarda Energy and Minerals limited is the official sponsor of the event.