Pune ATP Challenger: Yuki Bhambri to meet wildcard Anvit Bendre in opening round

Pune: Top seed and hot favourite Yuki Bhambri has got an easy opener as he has been pitted against local wild card Anvit Bendre in the ATP KPTI challenger event, beginning here on Monday.

In-form sixth seed Saketh Myneni faces Ilya Ivashka, while Sanam Singh will lock horns with Alessandro Bega.

Youngster Ramkumar Ramanathan will clash with Spanish player Gerard Granollers, ranked 272 in the world.

Somdev Devvarman, striving to arrest his slide, will take on Maxime Janvier of France and N Vijay Sundar Prashanth has been drawn to play Arthur De Greef.

Wildcard Vishnu Vardhan will take on Egor Gerasimov of Belarus and Sumit Nagal has been drawn to take on Indian qualifier Purav Raja.

According to the draw, if matches go on without upsets till the quarterfinals for the seeds, Yuki is drawn to take on seventh seeded Yannick Mertens of Belgium and fourth seeded James Ward of England could be playing fifth seeded Saketh Myneni .

Sixth seed Somdev Devvarman could take on second seeded Evgeny Donskoy of Russia who made it to the semis of the Kremlin Cup ATP last week.

In the doubles event Purav Raja and his Russian partner Alexander Kudryavtsev have been giving the top billing and will have to go through a tough opener as they take on Wildcards John. Fruttero of USA and N. Vijay Sundar Prashanth of India who finished finalists last week in Bangalore.

Second seeds and winners at Bengaluru Saketh Myneni and Sanam Singh have been drawn to take on Belarusian pair of Egor Gerasimov and Ilya Ivashka.