Top Indians for ITF event

Mysore, June 3 (IANS) Big-time tennis returns to Mysore after a decade when the Zuari Garden City $10,000 ITF Futures men's championship gets underway at the famous Mysore Tennis Club courts here from Monday.

Davis Cupper Vishnu Vardhan (362) is the highest ranked Indian player in the field and has been seeded second behind Chinese Taipei's Ti-Chen (301).

Vardhan recalled a victory as a 10-year old when he last played here in a AITA junior tournament and hoped to give good account of himself in the ITF event.

Vardhan, who missed last week's Mandya Open where he was the top seed, said: "I had a tough challenger tournament in Uzbekistan and I badly needed some rest. Hence I didn't play in Mandya."

Other top Indian players include Karan Rastogi (464), Mandya ITF Open champion Saket Myneni, the runner-up Vijayant Malik and the semifinalists Sri Ram Balaji and Ranjeet Virali Murugesan.

The organisers have given Wild cards to local players Vinod Gowda and Suraj Prabodh besides Shabaaz Khan and Saurabh Singh.

In the final qualifying round Sunday, Sagar Manjanna made it to the main draw beating Rishabdev Raman (6-4, 6-4) braving a sore shoulder for which he took treatment during the match.

Final Qualifying results: Tejas Chaukulkar bt Murtaza Lohani 6-1, 6-2; Sagar Manjanna bt Rishabdev Raman 6-4, 6-4; Kunal Anand bt Sai Saran Reddy 6-1, 6-4; Fariz Mohammed bt Krishna Karsolia (IND) 6-4, 6-4; Venkat Iyer bt Rynold Timothy 7-5, 6-2; Viju George Jr (USA) bt Bharatram Balajee 6-2, 6-2; Neeraj Elangovan bt Vignesh Veerabadran 7-5, 6-2; Ajai Selvaraj bt Elwin Antony 6-3, 6-3.