VietNamNet Bridge – The Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) Challenger Tour will take place at Lan Anh Tennis Club in Ho Chi Minh City from October 10 to 18 under the name ‘Vietnam Open 2015’, with the host country to be represented by its top two tennis stars, Ly Hoang Nam and Nguyen Hoang Thien.

Nguyen Hoang Thien and Ly Hoang Nam

This will be the first time in ten years that Vietnam has been granted the honour of hosting a tournament under the ATP Challenger Tour system. According to General Secretary of the Vietnam Tennis Federation Nguyen Quoc Ky, organisation of the Vietnam Open 2015 will promote Vietnam on the world’s tennis map and enhance the status of Vietnamese sports in the eyes of international friends. The tournament also offers an ideal opportunity for Vietnamese players to sharpen their skills and gain experience playing amongst some of the most outstanding tennis players throughout the world, Ky added.

The US$50,000 Vietnam Open 2015 will feature competition among some 160 tennis players from around the world, including those of the ATP’s top 300, with the overall winner to receive a maximum of 90 ATP rating points. Vietnam’s leading tennis stars Ly Hoang Nam and Nguyen Hoang Thien have already been given wild cards to the main rounds of both the singles and doubles categories. With the competition’s point calculation, the two Vietnamese representatives will enjoy a promotion in the ATP rankings if they secure victories in their first-round matches.

Nam is currently standing 1,035th in the world with ten ATP points accumulated after his nearly two years of participating in the Men’s Futures tournaments. If Nam can manage to earn at least eight points from the Vietnam Open 2015, he will have the high possibility of conquering the world’s top 800 which is currently seeing 21 players in a deadlock on the same points of 18.

This is the first time in his tennis career that Nam is confronted with an opportunity of achieving such a large number of ATP rating points. In preparation for this important tournament, Nam decided not to participate in the 2015 National Tennis Championships which concluded in Hanoi a few days ago. As a result of his consecutive successes won thus far this year, Nam is strongly anticipated by local fans to advance further in the Vietnam Open tournament. The first main-round challenge for the top Vietnamese player will be announced at the draw scheduled on October 9.

Apart from receiving a wild card to the Vietnam Open main round, Ly Hoang Nam will receive an automatic bye in the main round of the 2015 ATP Pune Challenger, to be held in India later next month. Nam’s wild card is attributed to an agreement between the Vietnam Tennis Federation and the Indian Tennis Federation granting Indian player, Sumit Nagal, a Vietnam Open main-round wild card in exchange for Nam’s berth in the main round of the Pune Challenger. This will be an ideal opportunity for Ly Hoang Nam to make a leap on the ATP rankings.

As for Nguyen Hoang Thien, the Vietnam Open 2015 will be a good chance for the Ho Chi Minh City player, who has yet to be ATP-rated, to enroll his name in the ATP ladders. Like his teammate Ly Hoang Nam, Thien also skipped the 2015 National Tennis Championships and carried on with his US training and participation in the Men’s Futures tournaments in preparation for the Vietnam Open.

However, Nam and Thien are predicted to face numerous difficulties on their way to securing victory at the ATP Challenger Tour competition. At an introduction ceremony held in HCM City on September 22, the organising board revealed that there world be many of the world’s top 300 among participants competing in the Vietnam Open, most notably including former world no. 19 Marcel Granollers (81st in ATP rankings), who won the Davis Cup twice with the Spanish team (in 2008 and 2011) and made the men’s doubles finals of the 2014 Roland Garros and US Open. Apart from Marcel Granollers, the tournament will also feature many other strong players including two-time Challenger Tour winner, James Duckworth (Australia, world no. 98); 2010 Asian Games winner Somsev Devvarman (India, world no. 116); Luke Saville (Australia, world no. 205) and Daniel Nguyen (Vietnamese American, world no. 228).

Those include all of the possible players to be seeded at the tournament who are expected to pose tough challenges on Vietnamese players’ hoping to advance. Although playing in an ATP Challenger Tour competition is said to be beyond the abilities of Nam and Thien, the opportunities of competing with much higher-rated players in the world will surely bring about useful lessons of experience for Vietnam’s tennis stars.

Nhan Dan