Italy’s newly-crowned US Open women’s singles champion Flavia Pennettta will play for Mumbai Masters at this year’s Champions Tennis league along with 1996 Wimbledon men’s champion Richard Krajicek of the Netherlands following the players’ draft held here on Wednesday.
The second edition of the CTl, the brainchild of former Indian Davis Cup captain Vijay Amritraj, is scheduled from November 23 to December 6, an increase of four days from last year’s ten-day duration, Amritraj informed.
Kevin Anderson of South Africa, who beat Andy Murray in the US Open, and the world’s tallest player - Ivo Karlovic - of Croatia, would play for new entrants Team Raipur and last year’s participants Hyderabad Aces respectively.
Among other notable current men players are Andreas Seppi of Italy (Mumbai), Cypriot Marcos Baghdatis (Punjab Marshalls, Chandigarh), along with French professionals Feliciano lopez (Team Nagpur) and Fernando Verdasco (for the undecided team).
The top women professionals who would take part are five-time Grand Slam women’s singles winner Martina Hinges of Switzerland (Hyderabad), a former world no. 1 and current doubles partner of India’s Sania Mirza, Serb Jelena Jankovic (Nagpur), France’s Alize Cornet (Raipur), Ukraine’s Elina Svitolina (Chandigarh) and Heather Watson of Britain who would play for the sixth outfit in the league.
The senior players who would be seen are Saket Myneni (Chandigarh), Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan (Hyderabad), Sriram Balaji (Mumbai), Divij Sharan (Nagpur), Ramkumar Ramanathan (Raipur) and Vishnu Vardhan (unnamed team).