National tennis championship back with big purse

The Fenesta tennis championship will revive the big purse for champions with the current edition scheduled from Monday.

The DCM Shriram group, associated with promoting tennis for more than 25 years, had stayed away from the game during the pandemic, keeping the safety of the players in mind.

The All India Tennis Association (AITA) had conducted the 2020 edition of the National championship in March this year, albeit with a truncated prize purse.

Arjun Kadhe and Shrivalli Bhamidipaty, who had won the men’s and women’s titles then at the Tennis Project in Gurugram, won about ₹60,000.

The Fenesta National champions are all set to get ₹3,00,000 prize each for the men’s and women’s events, with the total prize money amounting to about ₹21,55,000.

Lot of action

With a series of men’s and women’s ITF events scheduled to be held in Indore, Delhi, Gurugram, Bengaluru, Solapur, Pune and Navi Mumbai with a total prize purse of $125,000 in November and December, the National championship will signal the start of a lot of tennis action in the country.

With the leading players busy in the international circuit around the world, Niki Poonacha, Ishaque Eqbal, Nitin Kumar Sinha, Paras Dahiya, Abhinav Sanjeev Shanmugam, Dalwinder Singh, Prithvi Sekhar, S.D. Prajwal Dev, V.M. Ranjeet will be the leading men’s players in the National championship.

In the women’s section, Zeel Desai, Vaidehi Chaudhari, Sravya Shivani, Soha Sadiq, Sai Samhitha, Shrivalli Bhamidipaty, Mihika Yadav, Arthi Muniyan, Prerna Bhambri will be the main players.

While the runners-up will pocket ₹2 lakh, it will be only ₹40,000 for the semifinalists.

The qualifying events, starting on Saturday, will have a 64-player draw for men and 48 for women.