By IANS
Kolkata : India’s Vikram Reddy and Indonesia’s Grace Ysidora have been given the top billing in the ONGC – ITF Junior Tennis championship to be held from January 21 to 26 by the Dakshin Kalikata Sansad (DKS) here.
B Vikram Reddy of India and Grace Sari Ysidora of Indonesia are the top seeds in the tournament featuring players from 18 countries. The top five in the boys’ section have four Indians with S Sitaram, C Marquis and C Sood seeded third to fifth. The second seed goes to David Susanto of Indonesia.
In the girls’ section the remaining four positions also went to Indians with Sweta Solanki, Tanvi Shah, Rashmi Teltumbde and Ashvarya Srivastava making for the top five. Kyra Shroff, who got a wild card in the Sunfeast Open, is seeded seventh here.
Tournament Director Hironmoy Chatterjee said Friday, “After successfully organising the ITF Junior Circuit for the past few years, we have been entrusted once again to hold this prestigious World Ranking championship this year 2008. DKS has earned the distinction of hosting Grade 3 category tournament.”
While the winner takes home 60 points in singles, the points earned for doubles is 50.
It will be a 32-player draw in singles and a 16-team draw in doubles.
The draw of 32 will be divided into a direct entry of 24, four qualifiers and four wild cards. This time all the wild cards have been given to the Indians to promote the game here.
In the boys section the wild cards are Bibaswa Deb, N Sai Kartik, Prithiv Sivasubramanium and Priyank Gangadharan. In the girls’ section wild cards have been given to Amrita Mukherjee, Shweta C Rana, Sushma Gutta and Vaniya Dangwal. However, with Sharon Sanchana Paul withdrawing with a back pain, Shweta has been given a direct berth.
The tournament has players from 18 countries including, Hong Kong, Uzbekistan, Indonesia, Russia, Belarus, Japan, Kazakhstan, Great Britain, New Zealand, Italy, Georgia, Thailand, Belgium, Switzerland, Chinese Taipei, Bosnia Herzegovina and Turkmenistan apart from hosts India.