Sports Round-up

Pune will host the inaugural Maharashtra Tennis League from January 2 - 6. The announcement was made by Aniruddha Deshpande and Nandan Bal on Thursday and the logo of the league was also unveiled. This is a first of its kind initiative in tennis and will feature six franchises with six players each. Every franchise would have two women players. Also every franchise will have at least one player from Maharashtra. Chief Patron of the Maharashtra Tennis League, Nandan Bal said that top Indian tennis players like Purav Raja, Saketh Myneni, Sriram Balaji and Jeevan Neduncheziyan will take part in the league. Olympian Vishnu Vardhan has also confirmed his participation along with rising star and current Indian Davis Cup player Yuki Bhambri. Technical director of the league, Hemant Bendrey said the league will be held on a ‘best of games’ format. A pool of 80 players have been selected for auction based on their AITA rankings. Promising juniors have also been included in the player pool. The team allotment ceremony will be held on November 24.

Amritraj and Myneni book semis berth

Prakash Amritraj and Saketh Myneni kept the Indian flag flying in the Solaris ITF Futures tennis championship by reaching the semi-finals. Myneni dumped defending champion Jeevan Neduncheziyan 7-6(5), 6-2 in the quarterfinals. The Hyderabad lad was in control against the current national Champion throughout the match which lasted for 106 minutes. Prakash Amritraj upset third seed Liang-Chi Huang of Taipei

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