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All eyes on Moya as Gold Flake Open kicks off

His high strung racquet in hand, the latest celebrity in tennis -- Carlos Moya from Spain, locked in the battle for the top spot with his American counterpart Pete Sampras -- stares at you from the billboards.

The tall cardboard pillars, painted bright red and displaying a tennis ball streaking at lightning speed, beckons you to the Nungambakkam Stadium as yet another edition of the ATP World Tour Gold Flake Open championships unfolds in Chennai on Monday.

The week-long event, promoted by the International Management Group, ends with the battle for the singles and doubles titles on April 11. But Moya, winner of the French Open title at Roland Garros and top seeded here, is not the clear favourite. Nor is the second seeded Czech, Karol Kucera.

Despite the hot, humid conditions here, Moya will perhaps draw inspiration from the prospect of reclaiming the number one spot in the world rankings from Sampras, if he can perform well enough to enter the final here.

Besides Moya and Kucera, names to look for are the Swede Thomas Johansson (world number 17, seeded three), Zimbabwe's Byron Black (number 29 and seeded 4), Australia's Andrew Ilie (43, seeded 5).

The Indian challenge focusses on the doubles event, with the world number two pairing of Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi expected to complete a hat-trick of titles at the venue. It will be recalled that the Paes-Bhupathi fairytale actually began at this venue, with their 1997 title triumph sparking off a golden run that saw them break into the world's top ten. This time, the backstage buzz is that there is a rift in their relationship, with various parties attempting to do what they can to patch things up.

Singles-wise, it is up to Paes to provide some drama. Paes has slipped outside the top 100, and is now ranked 101 -- a good run here will help him get back inside that magic figure. Mahesh Bhupathi, ranked 322 has been given a wild card here. Last year, despite a nagging rotator cuff injury, Paes managed to reach the quarters, but Bhupathi failed to go beyond round two. This time, the latter has an even harder ask, since he will take on the Australian Richard Fromberg -- who, despite being unseeded, is being seen as a favourite to go all the way.

Of the 11 Indians in the fray in the 32-draw qualifying rounds, ten of them bit the dust. The only hope left is southpaw Vinod Sridhar, but even he is unlikely to make it, being drawn to meet third-seeded Dutchman Roger Wassen in the second round later on Sunday. All ten Indians who lost on Saturday failed to put up any kind of fight at all.

The classic event, to which the IMG has made a habit of roping in a reigning Grand Slam winner each year, carries a total prize money of $431,000, and is sponsored by tobacco giants ITC. This time, IMG appears to have outdone itself, for never before has an Indian tournament attracted so many players inside the top-20. And that means there could be some high voltage tennis action in the days to come.

The prize money break up reads: Singles: winner: $58,000, runnerup $34,000, semifinalists, $20,000, quarterfinalists $11,500, pre-quarterfinalists $6,000, second round $4,050.

Doubles: winner : $28,900, runnerup $16,800, semifinalists $10,040, quarterfinalists $5,210, pre-quarterfinalists $1,500.

As far as the points breakup goes, the winner here stands to earn 160 points, the runner-up 115, the semifinalists 70, 35 for getting into the quarters, 18 for the pre-quarters and one point for getting into the second round.

UNI