Amidst the shadow cast by gambling and match-fixing charges rocking the world of professional tennis, Chennai Open 2008, one of the three ATP season openers, was launched in the Tamil Nadu capital on Monday.
The 13th edition of the event, to be held from Dec 31 to January 6, promises high-voltage action with the presence of four Top 20 players led by World No.2 Rafael Nadal of Spain and a total of 16 Top 100.
A few Indian players have chances of getting a singles berth among the three wild cards on offer in the 32-player main draw of the USD 436,000 tournament.
Announcing the field, Balu Nayyar, MD, IMG India, the owners of the tournament, said with the presence of the four Top 20 players -- Nadal, Marcos Baghdatis, Carlos Moya and Mikhail Youzhny, who are joined by Defending Champion, Xavier Malisse this was arguably the strongest ever line-up.
As for Indian players entering the main-draw as wild cards, Nayyar said 'We are in discussions with the All India
Tennis Federation on this. Name of the Wild Card entrants will be announced sooner.'
Besides the three wild cards, four players would be spotted after a two-day qualifying event for the singles category, while the doubles entries would be finalised when draw is made.
The betting charges, hitherto unheard of in the tennis world, surfaced when an internet betting site nullified all wagers after fourth-ranked Nikolay Davudenko (Russia) lost to Martin Vasallo Arguello in Poland recently and then informed the Assocition of Tennis Professionals about it.
ATP has also acknowledged that a 'highly subjective' list of 140 suspicious matches dating from 2002 had been compiled and handed over to investigators.'
Evading a direct reply to IMG contracted players figuring in the list of the investigators looking into gambling and match-fixing, Nayyar said he was not in a position to answer such questions.
The investigations into these allegations are going on since August this year by officials including two former
Scotland Yard detectives.
The list 25 invited players for the singles:
Rafael Nadal (Spain-ranking 2), Marcos Baghdatis (Cyprus-16), Carlos Moya (Spain-17), Mikhail Youzhny (Russia-19), Xavier Malisse (Belgium-109), Nicholas Mahut (France-45), Jurgen Melzer (Austria-60), Werner Eschauer (Germany-65), Marc Gicquel (France-70), Marin Cllic (Croatia-71), Guillermo Garcia-Lopez (Spain-90), Florent Serra (France-91), Thierry Ascione (France-93), Fabio Fognini (Italy-94), Edouard Roger- Vasselin (France-96), Kristof Vliegen (Belgium-97), Jiri Vanek (Czech-99), Paul Capdeville (Chile-100), Oliver Patience (France-105), Robin Haase (Netherlands-112), Ivan Navarro (Spain-114), Gilles Muller (Luxembourg-115), Matheiu Montcourt (France-116), Denis Gremelmayr (Germany-118) and Yuri Schukin (Russia-119).
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