Rutuja to partner Yuki; Indian men face Korean hurdle, again, in Asian Games tennis

Pune: Rutuja Bhosale, the mixed doubles gold medallist from the past edition, will partner Yuki Bhambri while 2018 singles bronze medallist Ankita Raina will combine with Sriram Balaji after the tennis draws were made in Nagoya on Friday.Tennis competition starts Sunday.While Rutuja (world ranked 117 in women’s doubles), who won the gold with Rohan Bopanna in Hangzhou, and Yuki (45) are the second seeds, Ankita and Balaji are seeded fourth and placed in the top half of the draw.In the singles, Sumit Nagal (248) is seeded seventh and features in the bottom half of the draw that also includes Kazakhstan’s second seed Aleksandr Shevchenko (109) and China’s third seed Yibing Wu (113).Dhakshineswar Suresh (359) is in the top half and faces a potential quarterfinal clash with Davis Cup nemesis Soonwoo Kwon (158), the fourth seed from South Korea in the quarterfinals.Hong Kong’s Coleman Wong (108) is the top seed. Interestingly, with 33 players in the field, all players except Zaid Al-Mashni of Jordan and Pakistan’s Muzammil Murtaza have a first-round bye.In doubles, Anirudh Chandrasekar (88) and Balaji (50) are the top seeds while Yuki, the highest-ranked player in the draw, and Suresh have been seeded fifth and could run into Korean pair Jisung Nam and Uisung Park, the second seeds, in the semis.A curious entrant in doubles is Pakistan’s Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi, a former US Open finalist and the current president of the country’s tennis federation. He will combine with Murtaza. On the women’s side, Rutuja and Ankita (158), the eighth seeds, have been handed a tough first round as they face Kazakhstan’s world No. 6 Anna Danilina and Yuliya Putintseva, ranked 79 in singles.China’s Shuai Zhang (6) and Hanyu Gao (16) are the top seeds while Su-Wei Hsieh and En-Shuo Liang of Taipei are second.EALA BRAVES WTA SANCTION TO COMPETEMeanwhile, Philippine sensation Alexa Eala has chosen to enter the Asian Games field despite the competition clashing with a mandatory WTA 1000 event, the China Open.The 21-year-old from Manila reportedly faces a $10,000 fine after the WTA Tour rejected her request to be exempted from the Beijing event, which runs from Sep 30 to Oct 11. The Philippines tennis federation, however, has followed up a strong plea with the WTA on her behalf. The world No. 18 is the top seed in singles and has also been paired with Shaira Hope Rivera in doubles, where she is ranked 125.