The anticipation was palpable inside the press conference room at the halfway mark of the Chennai Open’s draw ceremony on Saturday..
The first-round fixtures for the top half of the 32-player field of the WTA 250 event, returning to the country after three years, had been determined, but none of them featured an Indian.
The hunch of a potential all-Indian clash proved to be correct as 16-year-old Maaya Rajeshwaran Revathi was drawn to face fellow wildcard and World No. 388 Shrivalli Bhamidipaty, thus ensuring a local player’s presence in the second round.
Six months ago, Maaya was a reserve in the Indian squad at the Billie Jean King Cup Asia-Oceania Group I tournament in Pune, where Shrivalli won all five singles rubbers and helped the country qualify for the playoffs.
“She is an amazing junior player. We got to practise a lot during the Billie Jean King Cup,” said the 23-year-old Shrivalli when asked about Maaya, who had a stunning run to the WTA 125 Mumbai Open semifinals in February as a qualifier and also played at all four Junior Slams this season.
World No. 337 Sahaja Yamalapalli, the country’s top-ranked player and another wildcard, will take on a qualifier in the first round with a potential pre-quarterfinal match against third seed and Paris Olympics silver medallist Donna Vekic of Croatia.
“The Indian girls have got a wonderful chance to do well in this tournament. We have got two of them playing against each other, which is both a thrill and a disappointment,” said Vijay Amritraj, Indian tennis legend and president of the Tamil Nadu Tennis Association.
Germany’s Tatjana Maria (World No. 43), the only Top 50 player left after French Open semifinalist Lois Boisson (World No. 37) was forced to withdraw due to a knee injury, also pulled out on the eve of the draw ceremony for unspecified reasons.
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As a result, Turkiye’s Zeynep Sonmez (World No. 69) became the top seed, followed by Britain’s Francesca Jones (World No. 74), who leads the bottom half of the draw. Japan’s Nao Hibino and Mai Hontama, initially supposed to play in the qualifiers, also moved into the main draw.
At the inaugural edition held the week after the U.S. Open in 2022, USA’s Alison Riske-Amritraj (the then World No. 23) was the top seed, but this time, the field in Chennai is slightly weaker for multiple reasons. Two other 250 events in Hong Kong and Jiangxi, China, will also be running this week. The tournament in Hong Kong, voted as Tournament of the Year in the WTA 250 category in 2024, features Switzerland’s Belinda Bencic (World No. 13) and Canada’s Leylah Fernandez (World No. 22) as the top two seeds along with eight other Top 50 players. Also, the season-ending WTA Finals begin on November 1 in Riyadh, making it virtually impossible for any Top 10 player to show up in Chennai.
Czechia’s Linda Fruhvirtova, who was 17 when she won the inaugural edition in 2022, felt the draw was wide open. “It’s the last tournament of the season. Some girls might be tired or the opposite, even more motivated. The weather here can be extreme. Many times, you see qualifiers or unseeded players having great runs. For example, Monaco’s Valentin Vacherot at the Shanghai Masters. This season, the rankings don’t really play a big role,” said World No. 142 Fruhvirtova, who plays Germany’s Anna-Lena (World No. 181) in the first round.
The main draw action begins at the SDAT Stadium in Nungambakkam from Monday, with the final set to take place on November 2.
Alastair Garland, managing director of the tennis division of Octagon, the sports agency that holds the three-year license for the event, gave a hint about the future of the event originally supposed to be held in Mexico. “The intention is to keep it here (in Chennai). There are elements within our control, and then there are elements like the weather, which aren’t. So, we need to see how that progresses,” he said.
Published on Oct 25, 2025