Former Davis Cup player Enrico Piperno to witness the finals on Nov 17
Jamshedpur: Jamshedpur will host its first AITA (All India Tennis Association) Men’s National Ranking Lawn Tennis Tournament when the courts of Beldih and United Club stage Rs 50,000 event from 13 to 17 November, 2017. The 1st Men’s National Ranking meet in Jamshedpur will be played in singles and double
category. The event is being organized under the banner of ‘All India Tennis Association (AITA’) and
Jharkhand Tennis Association (JTA).
The qualifying rounds began on November 11 and will continue till November 12. The Main Draw matches will begin from Monday, 13th November at both the venues with the finals on
November 17. Matches will be played from 8 am onwards. Ashish Mathur, managing director, Jusco and deputy
chairman, Beldih Club, said, after the success of the AITA junior tournament played in July 2017, it’s the
Men’s national ranking lawn tennis tournament which is making its debut in Jamshedpur.
‘It was our aim to include sporting events in the Jamshedpur Winter Fest which is in its fifth year and with golf already an annual event the inclusion of lawn tennis makes this fest much more happening which already stages cultural event’, said Mathur while addressing a press conference at BOC pavilion on Saturday. Debapriyo Das alias Rishi from AITA, said, the championship has attracted entries from 14 different states, namely Gujarat, Maharashtra, Haryana, Telengana, Delhi, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Assam, Punjab, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, West Bengal along with six players from Jharkhand.
The popularity of this event can be gauged from the fact that 5 players in the Main Draw are in the Top 100 in the country. The tournament’s round of 32 draw will have 24 direct entries and 8 qualifies. For the qualifiers 20 players will fight it out for a place in the main draw over a period of two days, informed Das. ‘It’s a great initiative from Tatas and the state tennis association to host a national ranking tournament in Jamshedpur as the Eastern part of the country was losing senior ranking tournament and
players from Jharkhand, Bihar, Bengal and Odisha had to travel to northern an other parts of the country.
The tournament would help the budding players from the city as well as East Zone and will attract more top
level players in its 2nd and 3rd year’, added Rishi. Few prominent names from Bengal include- Abhinansu Borthakur, Rohit Rampuria, Sanil Jagtiani and Neeraj Choudhary along with Jaydeep S Chudasama (Rank 52) of Gujarat, Taha Kapadia (Rank 55) of Telangana etc. Kulvin Suri, Chief, Corporate Communications, Tata
Steel, ‘AITA Beldih Club All India National Ranking Junior Tennis Tournament (AITA) Championship
Series 2017 for the age group of Under 14 and 16 was held in July this year after a gap of almost 8 years
where we promised to bring the Men’s National Ranking tournament to the city.
We hope this tournament paves way for many more top level tournament in future’. Suri informed that India’s former Davis Cup and Fed Cup coach Enrico Piperno (also popularly known as Rico) who was also the member of the Indian Davis Cup Squad will be present during the finals of the tournament to be played on Friday, November 17.
Avneesh Gupta, VP, Shared Services, Tata Steel and chairman, Beldih Club, said, it’s a moment of
delight that national level tennis tournament has come to golf city and after a long gap lawn tennis is in the
revival mode.