Junior Nationals wide open

Chennai, Aug 1: With some of the top-ranked juniors yet to arrive, uncertaintly looms large for the IOB-MCC National Junior Hard Court Te...

Chennai, Aug 1: With some of the top-ranked juniors yet to arrive, uncertaintly looms large for the IOB-MCC National Junior Hard Court Tennis Championship which gets under way here tomorrow. With a number of fancied players pulling out owing to injuries and other commitments, the tournament has lost some of its charm.

Sheetal Gautham of Karnataka, who is the top-ranked junior in the girls event, would like to improve on her record. Last year, she bowed out early to Chandigarh8217;s Harsimran Kaur and the year before, reached the semi-finals losing to eventual winner Uzma Khan.

With Shruti Dhawan, Sheetal8217;s doubles partner and one of the top-ranked women players in the country unable to take part because of injury, the main threat for Sheetal should come from last year8217;s finalist and second seed Radhika Tulpule Pune if she takes part! Tulpule won a strong women8217;s tournament in 8217;99 and did reasonably well in the junior tournaments in South Africa.

Also participating is American-turned Indian KhushchehrItalia, who seems to be hitting the ball hard. Whether she can do it in the main draw remains to be seen.

The under-18 boys title is up for grabs. The top two seeds Kedar Tembe and Kedar Shah of Maharashtra haven8217;t confirmed their entry yet. Further strong players Akshay Vishal Rao and Karan Doctor pulled out of the tourney.Benjamin Xavier Maharashtra, Parthasarthy Bhattacharya Delhi, Arvind Prakash and Chinna Kannan Tamil Nadu in the boys section; and Shereen Yusuf, Radha Devendrappa Karnataka, Sharanya Pattabi and Rekha Mohan in the girls section were given wild cards.

Srinath beats Fazal: India8217;s Prahlad Srinath, ranked 331 in the world, beat Davis Cup teammate Syed Fazaluddin, ranked 100 places below him, on Saturday in the first round of the Montreal Super-9 qualifiers, 5-7, 6-3, 6-2. Kirtanes in finals: The Kirtane cousins, Nitin and Sandeep, reached the doubles finals in the Egypt Futures. The result of that final is yet to be ascertained. The cousins have 12 points so far and can make it18 with a win in the final. There is a chance they may enter the top 300 in doubles. Leander in main draw: India8217;s top-ranked singles player, Leander Paes, has entered the main draw of the Montreal Super 9. Paes moves to Montreal after a quarterfinal doubles loss partnering Jonas Bjorkman in the Mercedes Benz Cup in Los Angeles.