Chennai, Feb 6 (.) Davis Cupper Sumit Nagal, ranked 281, would lead the Indian challenge as players from 14 countries will vie
for honours in the Coromandel Chennai Open ATP Challenger Men’s International Tennis Championship 2026 – an ATP Challenger
50 to be hosted by the Tamil Nadu Tennis Association (TNTA) from February 9-15 at the SDAT Stadium, Nungambakkam here.
A TNTA release on Friday said the sign in and qualifying rounds for the singles and doubles will begin tomorrow.
The main draw consists of 32 players – 21 direct acceptances, 2 Special exempts, 3 wild cards, 6 qualifiers.
The Qualifying consists of 24 players with 4 wild cards.
The prize money for the event is USD 63,000 (Rs.60 lakhs). The prize money for Singles Winner is USD 9,500 (Rs 8,64,500) and will get 50 ATP points, while the Runner Up will receive USD 5,500 (Rs 5,00,500 and 25 points).
The Double pair winners will receive USD 2,980 (Rs 2,71,180) and Runner Up USD 1,740 (Rs 1,58,340).
The Chennai Event is the first of a series of ATP Challenger events to be held in India. The next few tournaments are to be held at Delhi and Pune.
The main draw matches would commence on Monday, February 9 and the finals during the weekend with the doubles on Saturday and the Singles on Sunday.
In this edition of the tournament players from 14 countries – Czech Republic, Great Britain, South Africa, Croatia, Japan, Hong Kong, Kazakhstan, Canada, Uzbekistan, Spain, Hungary, France, Italy, and Turkey, besides India will be participating and the competition is going to be stiff.
The top seed is Jay Clarke of Great Britain ranked 178 now among the top 8 player in Great Britain. He is followed at No 2 by Federico Agustin Gomez of Argentina ranked 192.
The other seeds are Oliver Crawford of Great Britain ranked 204, Rio Noguchi of Japan ranked 236, Federico Ferreira Silva of Portugal ranked 265 and Ilia Simakin of Russia ranked 275.
Sasikumar Mukund, Manish Suresh Kumar and Manas Dhamne of India have been given wildcards for the Main Draw.
In the last ATP Challenger event held in 2025 in Chennai, Kyrian Jacquet of France won the event and Elias Ymer of Sweden was the finalist.
Paulo Cardoso of Portugal will be the ATP Supervisor and he will be aided by Anton Dsouza the Referee and P Saravanan will be the Chief of Officials.
TNTA celebrated 2025 as its centenary year and is proud of the fact that every year since 1996, barring the COVID years a major international event has been conducted at the SDAT Tennis Stadium, thanks to the support of Government of Tamil Nadu, Sports Development of Tamil Nadu and other sponsors.
Over the last three decades, the eventual winners as well as a host of Indian players who participated in the Chennai event have gone on to perform exceptionally well during the year, achieving their respective career milestones for the first time ever.
The instances range from Leander Paes reaching the final in the Challenger event in 1996, Leander and Mahesh Bhupathi winning the first ever ATP 250 doubles title in 1997, Rohan Bopanna reaching his first ever ATP 250 doubles in 2006 followed by winning the title with Jeevan Nedunchezhian in 2017. Somdev Devvarman reached the singles final in 2009.
Legendary tennis star and former Davis cupper Vijay Amritraj, who is also the TNTA President said, “On behalf of TNTA, I thank the Coromandel International and all the sponsors for their consistent support to tennis over the years. The conduct of international tournaments such as the ATP Challenger enables Indian players to excel on the world stage and has encouraged TNTA to embark on an ambitious Player Development program called THE NEXT LEVEL, an effort to provide financial and technical support to top Tamil Nadu juniors to enable them to play to their potential and achieve tennis excellence.”
. GV 1005