United News Of India
Chennai, Jan 3: Top ranked Indian and wild card entrant Somdev Devvarman would face a tough first round battle in the singles main draw of the Aircel-Chennai Open ATP World Tour Tennis tournament beginning here Monday.
In the singles draw ceremony held at the SAF Games Tennis stadium here Saturday, Somdev, Ranked 139, would meet sixth seed Hsun-yen Lu of Chinese Taipei in the first round, while another Indian in the fray Ramkumar Ramanathan (ranked 215), who was also given a wild card, would face highly placed Japanese Tatsuma Ito (ranked 94) in the first round.
Meanwhile, top seed and defending Champion, World No four Stan Wawrinka of Switzerland was given a bye in the first round, along with the second, third and fourth seeds Feliciano Lopz (Spain, ranked 14), Roberto Bautista Agut (Spain, ranked 15) and David Goffin (Belgium, ranked 22), respectively.
Talking about the draw, Somdev, who had won against Hsun Lu in the 2009 Davis Cup Match at Taiwan, seemed to be not worried about the fact that his first round opponent was ranked 100 placings higher than him. “It will really be a tough match. Hsun Lu comes off after a fantastic 2014 wherein he broke into the top 40,” he added.
