Jeevan, Sandhya top seeded for ITF juniors

Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan and Sandhya Nagaraj have been top seeded in the boys’ and girls’ singles respectively in the Grade 3 ITF jun...

Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan and Sandhya Nagaraj have been top seeded in the boys’ and girls’ singles respectively in the Grade 3 ITF junior tennis event starting at CLTA courts here tomorrow.

Jeevan, who hails from Tamil Nadu, is 64th in ITF rankings while Vivek Shokeen, winner of the Grade 2 event in Delhi last week, has been seeded second. Xiao-Peng of Hong Kong is the third favourite while Faisal Aidil of Indonesia has been seeded fourth.

Sandhya Nagaraj, ranked 99th, will be looking to make amends for the semifinal loss in Delhi. Xeniya Palkina of Kyrgyzstan, with an ITF ranking of 18th, has been seeded second.

Madura Ranganathan, who lost to Amina Rakhim in the final in Delhi yesterday, has been seeded third. Rakhim is the fourth seed.

Meanwhile, Alapati Siddhartha, Honey Rana and Akash Wagh advanced to the boys’ singles main draw after three qualifying rounds this afternoon.

Siddhartha ended the challenge of Wesley Baptist of South Africa in three sets 4-6, 6-1, 6-1. Rana scored a hard-fought win over compatriot Agnel Gladwin 4-6, 6-3, 6-4. Akash Wagh put it past Kaushik Das 6-2, 6-3.

In the girls’ section Varsha Shivashankar and Parija Maloo entered the main draw.