National Tennis Championship: Two-time champion J Vishnu Vardhan, Vaidehee Chaudhari start with wins

Chandan Shivaraj defeated Vedan Mehta in boys’ Under-18 category.

Two-time champion J Vishnu Vardhan and defending champion Vaidehee Chaudhari of Gujarat started their 28th National Tennis Championship 2023 campaign with thrilling wins on Tuesday at the DLTA Complex in New Delhi.

Telangana's Vishnu Vardhan, who is also the eighth seed in the tournament, had to dig deep to get a thrilling 7-6, 3-6, 7-5 victory against Adil Kalyanpur of Karnataka in the men’s singles match that lasted for more than three hours in scorching heat testing the physical limits of the players.

However, the Olympian utilised his experience in the third set to take the match with an exquisite backhand and move into the next round after Adil saved multiple match points.

In the women’s singles match, top-seed Vaidehee launched her title defence with a win as she defeated her state mate Saily Thakkar 6-2, 6-0 in straight sets to move into the next round of the tournament. The women's singles category also saw Delhi's Kashish Bhatia beat Pooja Ingle (Maharashtra) 6-3, 6-4 and eighth seed Sai Samhitha overpower Delhi’s Kavya Kumar 6-1, 1-6, 6-3 in a thriller.

Earlier, Tamil Nadu’s Abhinav Sanjeev S played brilliantly in the men’s singles category to defeat Aajay Malik of Haryana 6-0, 6-2 in straight sets, while Sheikh Md. Iftikhar (Karnataka) beat Tamil Nadu’s Dheeraj Srinivasan 6-3, 7-5 to reach the second round.

The National Tennis Championship—organised by DCM Shriram Ltd., a leading business conglomerate, under the aegis of All India Tennis Association and Delhi Lawn Tennis Association, has witnessed the participation of renowned Indian tennis players such as Rohan Bopanna, Somdev Devvarman, Yuki Bhambri, Sania Mirza and Rutuja Bhosale in the past editions. It is India’s biggest domestic tennis tournament.

In the boys’ Under-18 category, top-seed Chandan Shivaraj (Karnataka) thumped Delhi’s Vedan Mehta 6-1, 6-1 to move into the next round, while the No. 1 seed Maharastra’s Sonal Patil defeated Suhani Gaur (Haryana) 6-2, 6-1 in the Under-18 girls.

The 28th National Tennis Championship offers an attractive prize pool of over INR 21.5 lakh along with kit allowance in the junior categories.