Dev Varman admits that the lack of a wildcard was one of the reasons that will keep him away from Nungambakkam Stadium next week. "Yeah, that and some other things that I had to do also," the reigning NCAA champion told the Indian Tennis Blog. "I am training right now and plan on playing a Futures in Florida and then start the tennis season in school."
The wildcards for the main draw of the 2008 Chennai Open, to be held from December 31 to January 6, have gone the way of India's no. 2 player Prakash Amritraj and Grasscourt National Champion Vishnu Vardhan.
The third, which could have gone to another Indian player like Dev Varman, has been granted to Spaniard Bartolome Salva-Vidal.
The decision puts yet another dampener on a tournament already missing the best known names in Indian tennis.
While doubles specialist Leander Paes starts off his 2008 season on the Australian circuit with new partner Paul Hanley, singles no. 1 Rohan Bopanna will be busy partnering Sania Mirza at the Hopman Cup. And Mahesh Bhupathi will be making his comeback from injury the week after the Chennai event. Dev Varman is currently ranked a measly 1034 on the ATP Tour, thanks to his decision not to turn professional till mid-2008, when he finishes his stint at the University of Virginia.
But the 22-year-old won the NCAA championship in May 2007 - the first Indian to triumph at the premier American collegiate event and emulate the likes of John McEnroe, Jimmy Connors and Arthur Ashe.
INTERVIEW (Oct 2007)
Shame on Indian Tennis authorities who were responsible for not giving the 3rd wild card to an Indian and giving it to the spaniard. Guess they still havent learnt anything from the foreigners. US open gives one wild card every year to the NCAA champion and this year it did not give Somdev(NCAA Champion) because he is not an American.I am not saying its wrong but what i am saying is, why cant indian authorities learn from them and give wild cards to indians to encourage them, leave alone the sponsorships etc..
ReplyDeleteWhy Paradon Srichappan and Rainer Schuttler are not playing in this years draw? I remember them in action and I wish they could have played this year.
ReplyDeleteDestination Infinity.
My personal experiences at the Chennai Open, this year. Read it here:
ReplyDeletehttp://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-nPEwPDYwdqR9qc0RCXCNVHjbadw-?cq=1
hello sir,
ReplyDeletei am shikha shukla a journalist from dainik jagran ( a leading hindi daily newspaper)in kanpur,utter pradesh( india). i am planning an e-mail interview of somedev dev verman.My mail id is vijayalaxmi.shikha@gmail.com.By this interview i can give some information about somdev to my readers.hope u will provide me mail-id so that i can send my questionaire to him.
thanks & regards
shikha shukla
daink jagran
kanpur