Manas Dhamne, Indian prodigy, gets Wild Card for Pune Challenger

Indian teenager Manas Dhamne will play the ATP Pune Challenger next week courtesy of a Wild Card following maiden ITF win.

Manas Dhamne, Indian prodigy, gets Wild Card for Pune Challenger

Manas Dhamne

Wildcards for Manas Dhamne, Aryan Shah, and Karan Singh at PMRDA Powered MahaOpen ATP Challenger 100 Men’s Championships. Top players from 28 countries are to be seen in action in Pune from February 16.

(Press release)
Pune, February 13, 2025: In keeping with the vision to support the Young India Tennis Brigade Upcoming players Manas Dhamne, Aryan Shah, and Karan Singh have been handed over the Main Draw wildcards at the PMRDA Powered Maha Open ATP Challenger 100 Men’s Tennis Championship organized by Maharashtra State Lawn tennis Association (MSLTA) in association with the Department of Sports and Youth Services Govt of Maharashtra, PCMC, PMC and PMDTA at the Mhalunge Balewadi Tennis Stadium.

The premier high Level ATP Challenger which is sponsored by Pune Metropolitan Regional Development Authority (PMRDA) under a Five-year agreement will see top tennis players from 28 countries in action at the Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex at Mhalunge Balewadi from Sunday, February 16 to Sunday, February 23, 2025. The Pune Event is the third of a series of 4 ATP Challenger events being held in India. The previous tournaments were held at Chennai and Delhi while the last event will be played at Bengaluru.

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Providing international competition of high quality to Indian players is one of the main reasons for us and the PMRDA getting involved and supporting this event. The PMRDA Powered MahaOpen Challenger is another Feather on the Cap of the Indian Tennis Calendar organized by MSLTA. We are thrilled to organize this huge international event which goes a long way in promoting the image of the Pune Metropolis Region universally. Organizing the PMR Challenger event is a continuation of a grand vision of MSLTA for tennis development and promotion in Maharashtra and this follows the successful completion of the L&T Mumbai Open WTA 125 K series.

Mr. Prashant Sutar said.

Mr. Sutar and Sunder Iyer, the organizers of the event announced the main draw wildcards to 17-year-old Manas Dhamne who is fresh from a $15000 ITF win at Monastir last week, 19-year-old Aryan Shah who has been performing well in the last year at ITF events, and 21-year-old Karan Singh who made his Davis Cup Debut Two weeks ago.

We are looking at the future of Indian Tennis and these are the players who will take the next steps with events like this. We made the right move with 15-year-old Maaya Rajeshwaran at the L&T Mumbai Open last week and we believe this week too might throw up surprises. We believe that by providing the right opportunities and right moments our players can move to the next level. We discussed this in detail and feel this is the way forward. We have also decided to award one wildcard in the qualifying to 16-year-old Arnav Paparkar.

Sutar and Iyer added

Sunder Iyer said that it was a proud moment for Maharashtra to host another major tennis event. This year, MSLTA hosted events worth over $4,25,000 (₹3.7 crores) which was the highest in the country and this was possible with Government of Maharashtra support and corporate support we are happy that these events have helped our tennis players not only in Maharashtra but across India.

Prize money for ATP Pune Challenger

The prize money for the event will be USD 130000 (Rs.1.12 crores). The winner will receive 100 ATP ranking points and USD 17650 (Rs.15.50 lakhs) and the runner-up 60 ATP points and USD 10380 (Rs.9 lakhs) the first-round loser receives USD1270 (Rs.1.10 lakhs). The qualifiers also receive an incentive of USD 380 (Rs.33,000/-). The main draw consists of 32 players – 23 direct acceptances, 3 wild cards, and 6 qualifiers. Qualifying consists of 24 players with 4 wild cards.

Vit Kopriva
Vit Kopriva (Image via X)

Mr. Andrei Kornilov of Uzbekistan will be the ATP Supervisor for the event, Leena Nageshkar will be the Referee of the event, and Amit Deshpande will be the Chief of Officials.

Other partners for the event apart from PMRDA, Dept of Sports and Youth Services will be Pune Municipal Corporation, Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation, Bisleri (Beverage Partner), Shushrut Hospital (Medical Partner), and Dunlop ( Equipment Partner). The time of play will be from 11 a.m. onwards. Entry for spectators to witness the matches is free and we look forward to a great number of sports and tennis lovers coming to the stadium to witness the matches.

Following are The Probable Seeding (Singles)

  1. Vit Kopriva, CZE 128
  2. Billy Harris GBR 129
  3. Tristan Schoolkate, AUS 147
  4. Elmer Moller, DEN 149
  5. Jurij Rodionov, AUT 155
  6. Duje Ajdukovic, CRO 158
  7. Alex Bolt, AUS 168
  8. Alexis Galarneau, CAN 176