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Odisha ace Kabir Hans made the State proud by finishing doubles runners-up in the ITF World Tennis Tour Mens $25,000 Tournament, which was held at Kalinga Stadium Tennis Centre in Bhubaneswar from 3 to 10 November 2024. Top-seeded Igor Agafonov and Bogdar Bobrov won the doubles title, defeating Kabir Hans and his Indian partner Rishab Agarwal 6-4, 6-3 in the final yesterday.
The singles title was bagged by Dalibor Svrcina (Czech Republic), who justified his reputation as the top seed as well as the highest ranked player (World No 278) in the fray. He beat seventh seed Nick Chappell (USA) in the final, 6-2, 6-0 today. With this victory, Svrcina earned the top prize of $3,600 and 25 ATP singles ranking points. Runner-up Chappell received $2,120 and 16 ATP singles ranking points.
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The tournament was a golden opportunity for five Odisha players to earn ATP points and boost respective careers. But barring Hans, none could capitalize on it. Among the five, Kabir, Amrutjay Mohanty and Pratyush Mohanty were given wild cards to compete in the singles main draw. But all three lost in the first round.
Kabir went down to M Rifgi Fitriadi (Indonesia) 4-6, 2-6, Amrutjay lost to Sidharth Rawat (India) 0-6, 0-6 and Pratyush was beaten by Yash Chaurasia (India) 6-2, 6-2. Debasis Sahoo and Aditya Satpathy, the other two Odisha players in the fray, fell at the first hurdle in the qualifying round.
Debasis was eliminated by Muni Ananth Muni (India) 6-1, 6-3, while Aditya lost to Siddhant Banthia (India) 0-6, 1-6. Debasis and Amrutjay also featured in doubles event, but only to be knocked out in the first round.
Partnering Siddharth Vishwakarma (India), Amrutjay put up stiff resistance before going down to Raghav Jaisinghani and Bharat Nishok Kumaran (India) 1-6, 6-4, 8-10 in super tie-breaker. Debasis and his partner Caheer Warik were defeated by Ishaque Eqbal and Faisal Qamar 6-3, 6-2.
The eight-day tournament was organized by Odisha Tennis Association (OTA), in collaboration with Sports & Youth Services Department, Government of Odisha. Players from India, USA, Australia, Germany, Japan, Russia, Ukraine, Czech Republic, Moldova, Indonesia and Nepal participated in the tournament.
OTA president Asit Tripathy and secretary Dr Satyajit Mohanty presented trophies and prizes to the winners and runner-up at the closing ceremony. OTA joint-secretary Sanjeeb Panda, ITF supervisor Abhishek Mukherjee, assistant supervisor Prabin Kumar Nayak, OTA administrative officer Sambit Patnaik and manager Bismay Das were present on the occasion.
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TOP: Odisha hero Kabir Hans (Right) and his partner Rishab Agarwal pose with their doubles runners-up trophy in Bhubaneswar on 9 November 2024.
RIGHT: Dalibor Svrcina poses with his singles champion trophy in Bhubaneswar on 10 November 2024.
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