Tennis News
At $450K Chennai Open ATP Tennis Tournament, India (5 - 11 Jan 2009)

In the 14th edition of Chennai Open, our all players r participating ... Mahesh is participating with his Bahamas partner Mark Knowle ... Other hand Lee is participating with Czech partner Lukas Dlouhy ... WR #1 pair Bryans r also participating first-time.

In singles, Somdev Devvarman and Prakash Amritraj r receiving singles wildcards with Rohan and Aisam getting doubles wildcard.

Carlos Moya confirmed his participation in his 'second home' tournament ... Russian Nikolay Davydenko also confirmed his participation.

Lee - "It's always great be a part of the Chennai Open. I am glad to return to the city where I have grown up and to play in front of a crowd that's always been of great support to me. Lukas and I have had a phenomenal year and we hope to have a great start to the New Year. A fifth Chennai Open title would be a dream start for 2009."

Mahesh - "I am excited to be back playing at home after a few years. Mark and myself have had a great year and we look forward to kick- starting 2009 with a big week at the Chennai Open."

Mike Bryan - “We were always looking forward to visiting India and what better way than to play at the first tournament of the year in Chennai. The tournament has grown in stature over the years so we decided to participate this year. We hope we can make a winning start to 2009.”
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At Tennis Masters Cup 2008 (Doubles), Shanghai, China

GOLD GROUP

Lukas Dlouhy (CZE)/ Leander Paes (IND) l Daniel Nestor (CAN)/ Nenad Zimonjic (SRB) 16 46
Mariusz Fyrstenberg (POL)/ Marcin Matkowski (POL) bt Jonas Bjorkman (SWE)/ Kevin Ullyett (ZIM) 62 16 10(6)

Very disappointing end of the season for Lee and Lukas.

In second match Polish pair defeated Bjorkman and Ullyett ... With this loss great career of Bjorkman ended, who had career won/lost record of 709 - 306 in doubles ... Bjorkman won 9 Grand slam doubles titles ... And qualified 8 times at the prestigious circuit finale with five different partner ... He won the 1994 title with Jan Apell (beating Woodbridge-Woodforde) and in 2006 with Max Mirnyi (beating Knowles-Nestor).
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At $50K Champaign Challenger, Illinois, USA

[R2] Prakash Amritraj (IND,214) l Carsten Ball (AUS,202) 57 36

So Kash's inconsistent performance continued ... With this he lost chance of entering into top-200 next week.
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At $25K NECC- ITF Women's Tennis Championships, Pune, India

Semi-Finals-
(1) Melanie SOUTH (GBR) bt (4) Ksenia PALKINA (KGZ) 64 64
(8) Jing-Jing LU (CHN) bt (Q) Bojana JOVANOVSKI (SRB) 75 63

Doubles Final -
(2) CHANG (TPE)/ HWANG (TPE) bt DABIJA (ROU)/ JOVANOVSKI (SRB) 57 62 10(7)