Satellite loses gloss

That Indian Davis Cupper Prahlad Srinath has secured his first Satellite title in Mumbai on Saturday in his fifth entry into the final is not so much because he has improved phenomenally in the last one year mainly due to lack ofsufficient competition at his level of the game.

Lending further credence to this line of thinking is the fact that the man whom Srinath had beaten in the final was a qualifier playing his second Satellite tournament. This does not, however, mean that the Thai teenager, Danai Udomchoke, was easy prey for Srinath. In fact, he deserved to figure in the championship round, having taken three seeded players in his stride on his way to the final.

11 Indians qualify: Eleven Indians and one each from Germany and Great Britain have qualified for the main draw.

The Indians who made it are Ghouse Mustafa, Vishal Gupta, Saurav Panja, Srinivasan Pawan, Saif Ali, Sanzaruz Zaman, Avinash Arun, Rohan Bopanna, Kamala Kannan, Mohd Yaseer and Bose Kiran. The two foreigners are Ben Gudzelak Britain and Fahlke Gerhard Germany.