Robin Soderling top seed at Chennai open

Chennai :

French Open finalist Robin Soderling of Sweden has been given the top billing at the ATP Chennai Open to be held here from January 4-10 next year.

Last year's winner and world number 14 Marin Cilic of Croatia has been seeded second at the 15th edition of the event, which will witness a very the strongest field this year with the cut being 111 for the direct entry.

World number nine Soderling, who defeated Rafael Nadal at the French Open this year, is the highest ranked player among the 25 direct entrants.

India's young sensation Somdev Devvarman, who ended runner-up last year, and junior Australian Open champion Yuki Bhambri, are expected to get wild card entries.

Ravi Krishnan, Senior Vice President, IMG worldwide while launching the event promised tight security arrangements.

"It is significant that we are launching the event today on 26/11 (Mumbai terror attacks). In fact, the event this year was hosted successfully without any hitch despite the security concerns.

"There is no room for any security issues for the 2010 event. RK Raghavan, former CBI Director, will be heading the security officials," he said.

Karti Chidambaram, Vice President, AITA and Chairman, Organising Committee said the event would also be an occasion to honour the Indian team of 1960 which made the Davis Cup final for the first time.

Ramanathan Krishnan, S P Misra, Jaideep Mukherjea, and brother of late Premjit Lal, members of the team, would be honoured on January 9, he said.

Following are the 25 direct entrants for the main draw of 32 event (ranking in brackets and the first eight players are seeded in that order):

Robin Soderling (Sweden-9), Marin Cilic (Croatia-14), Stanislas Wawrinka (Switzerland-21), Janko Tipsarevic (Serbia-38), Dudi Sela (Israel-43), Simon Gruel (Germany-59), Rajveen Ram (USA-80), Lukas Lacko (Slovak-83), Michael Russell (USA-84), Rainer Schuettler (Germany-86), Yen Hsun Lu (Taipei-96), Robby Gingepri (USA-97), Michael Berrer (Germany-100), Denis Istomin (Uzbek-101), Jan Hajek (Czech-102), Igor Kunitsyn (Russia-103), Marcel Granollers (Spain-104), Robin Haase (Netherlands-105), Teimuraz Gabashvili (Russia-106), Santiago Giraldo (Colombia-107), Stephane Robert (France-108), Santiago Ventura (Spain-109) and Kim Kevin (USA-111).