CHENNAI: India’s best hope Somdev Devvarman will go up against sixth-seeded Yen-Hsun Lu of Chinese Taipei in the first round of the singles draw of the ATP Aircel Chennai Open, which commences here on Monday.
Edouard Roger-Vasselin of France takes on eighth-seeded Gilles Lux Muller (Luxembourg) in the first round while the top four seeds, defending champion Stan Wawrinka, Felicano Lopez, Roberto Bautista Agut and David Goffin received first round byes.
The other Indian wild card entry Ramkumar Ramanathan faces Japanese Tatsuma Ito in the first round.
In the doubles competition, Leander Paes and South African Raven Klaasen, who were drawn to play Andreas Haider-Maurer and Lukas Lacko in the first round, received top billing ahead of the Dutch-German combination of Robin Haase and Andre Begemann.
The second Indian tandem of Sriram Balaji and Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan is placed in the bottom half of the draw with a first round clash with Yen-Hsun Lu and Jonathan Murray.
Meanwhile, Yuki Bhambri led the Indian challenge in the qualifying competition by entering the second round along with Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan, scoring straight set victories.