Chennai Open 2025: Young Indian stars, including 16-year-old Maaya Rajeshwaran Revathi, set to shine

CHENNAI: A youthful Indian line-up will take centre stage when the Chennai Open 2025 WTA 250 gets underway at the SDAT Stadium on Monday.

All eyes will be on 16-year-old Maaya Rajeshwaran Revathi, one of the brightest prospects in Indian tennis, as she gears up to make her mark on home soil, as per Olympics.com.

This will be only the second-ever WTA 250 event hosted in India and the first since the inaugural Chennai Open held at the same venue three years ago.

Defending champion Linda Fruhvirtova of Czechia, who won the title as a teenager during the tournament’s maiden edition, returns to Chennai aiming to retain her crown. Meanwhile, Turkey’s Zeynep Sonmez, currently ranked world No. 69, heads the singles main draw as the top seed. She will be joined by Croatia’s Donna Vekic (No. 79), a Paris 2024 Olympic silver medallist, who enters as the third seed.

Also featuring in the top 100 are Francesca Jones (No. 74) of Great Britain, Janice Tjen (No. 80) from Indonesia, Italy’s Lucia Bronzetti (No. 91), and Leolia Jeanjean (No. 94) from France, adding international depth to the field.

Several Indian players have been handed wild cards for the home tournament. Sahaja Yamalapalli, currently ranked world No. 337 and India’s second-highest singles player, is part of the main draw. She joins Shrivalli Bhamidipaty (No. 328) and Maaya Rajeshwaran Revathi (No. 652), who interestingly will face each other in an all-Indian clash in the opening round.

Despite being the youngest competitor in the tournament, Maaya will have the crowd firmly behind her. The Tamil Nadu native has been in the spotlight since her breakthrough run to the semi-finals at the WTA 125 Mumbai Open earlier this year, where she stunned several higher-ranked opponents. Currently training at the prestigious Rafa Nadal Academy in Spain, the teenager is being widely tipped as the future face of Indian tennis.

Veteran Ankita Raina, who started in the qualifiers, fell to Japan’s Mei Yamaguchi 1-6, 3-6 in the opening round, missing out on a main-draw berth.

Riya Bhatia and Diya Ramesh also exited in the first round of qualifying after straight-set defeats. Meanwhile, 20-year-old Vaishnavi Adkar kept Indian hopes alive in the qualifiers by defeating Amina Anshba 7-5, 6-2, and will now face France’s Lew Yan Foon for a place in the main draw.

In the doubles draw, as many as 10 Indian players, including four all-Indian pairs, will be in action. The contingent is spearheaded by Prarthana Thombare, seeded fourth alongside her Dutch partner Ariane Hartono. Apart from her, Sahaja Yamalapalli is pairing up with a foreign player, Caroline Werner of Germany.

The promising duo of Maaya Rajeshwaran Revathi and Vaishnavi Adkar will also team up in the doubles competition. The top seeds in the field are Australia’s Storm Hunter and Romania’s Monica Niculescu, who have received a direct bye into the quarter-finals. (ANI)