Sood, Tanvi get top billing in ITF tennis

Kolkata, Jan 17 (IANS) India's Chandril Sood and Tanvi R. Shah have got the top billing among boys and girls respectively in the ONGC-International Tennis Federation (ITF) Junior Tennis tournament to be held from Jan 19-24 here.

While Sood has an ITF ranking of 192, boys' second seed Vaidik Munshaw is ranked 257.

Tanvi, who holds the 159th rank, is immediately succeeded by Russia's Anna Rapoport, ranked 202.

The qualifying rounds in the tourney at the Dakshin Kolkata Sansad is being played on Saturday and Sunday.

The contest will be held in boys' singles and doubles and girls' singles and doubles, the organizers said Friday.

The singles winner will collect 60 ITF points, while the runners up gain 45. Each of the semi finalists would be awarded 30 points.

In doubles, each member of the winning team would get 50 ITF points, while the runner ups win 30.

Entries have been received from fifteen countries including Uzbekistan, Thailand, Belgium, Russia, France, Sri Lanka, Belarus, Ireland, Australia, Japan and Kazakhstan, besides hosts India.

The Wild Cards for the Main Draw have been awarded to Indian boys Rohit Bisht, Sidarth Sivakumar, Venkat Iyer and Bibaswan Deb. In the girls' category, the wild cards have gone to Amrita Mukherjee, Shruti Jaiswal, Ankita Bhatia and Aishwarya Agarwal.