If Odisha has hockey, Karnataka has been upping its game to earn the moniker of the tennis hub of India, amid competition from Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra. A month after hosting the $ 100,000 ITF Women’s Circuit Tournament in Bengaluru, the Karnataka State Lawn Tennis Association (KSLTA) staged India’s biggest international tennis event. The Bengaluru Open has been a familiar fixture on ATP Challenger tour for the past decade, but in 2025, it earned a promotion. Having started out as a $50,000 tournament back in 2015, the tournament grew into a Challenger 125 event, handing out $200,000 to the winner. In addition, Bengaluru Open also witnessed an increase in support from the corporate, with the line-up featuring 22 sponsors and 12 partners.
As Bengaluru Open ended a busy week, with American tennis player Brandon Holt clinching his second ATP Challenger singles title of the season after a 6-3 6-3 win over Japan’s Shintaro Mochizuki in the final on Sunday, Sunil Yajaman, tournament director and joint-secretary of KSLTA, opened on the promotion, Karnataka tennis’ groundwork and the possibility of India witnessing the return of ATP 250 event with Bengaluru as the host.
Here are excerpts…
Q) Firstly, talk about Bengaluru Open getting upgraded to an Challenger 125 event.
I think it was a conscious effort. We started off as a $50,000 tournament way back in 2015 and consciously we’ve been working on trying to upgrade this event so that it provides a better opportunity for our own players. I mean our main target is Indian players. So I think we have worked on that and we have been engaging with the corporates for partnerships and slowly we have grown to a $200,000 tournament. It’s a 125 event now. So I think it’s thanks to our team at KSLTA and the wonderful leadership which helped us get a little more sponsors and to upgrade this event.
Q) What is it that KSLTA is doing different compared to other Challenger events in the Indian circuit?
I’m sure they’re all doing a wonderful job. Conducting a Challenger itself is a big deal. So hats off to Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra, and Delhi joined the bandwagon last year. So I think it’s been amazing effort from all these four state associations. For us, it’s been nothing different. The way it’s organised might be different in different places, but the basic essence of having a Challenger here in India and that to four in a row, I think it’s an amazing effort by all these four associations and, and a great thing for Indian tennis.
Q) Three regions in India have put their best foot forward in creating a tennis hub. Karnataka is one of them. Could you talk about that
I think that’s been the culture of KSLTA for quite some time. We are one of those few, probably the only state association which has 12 district headquarters with tennis complex which is good enough to hold even a challenger level tournament. We have been consciously taking tennis to tier two and tier three cities because you don’t know where a champion could emerge. We need to go there, inspire and motivate the children to play tennis. There is a lot of talent and hunger in these smaller places.That’s one thing that we’ve been doing consciously.
The other thing is that we have been organising quite a few ITF tournaments along with this ATP. For the first time we had the biggest ITF event – ITF Women’s $100,000 tournament one month ago and this was again to give an opportunity for our players because as of now, none of our players can go and play a $100,000 tournament women’s tournament outside India. So because we were able to do this year, we gave that opportunity for our players who came and played and some of them did pretty well and picked up quite a few points. They actually played against the best players because ITF 100 gets some of the best players in the top 100. We had some players and it gave them an opportunity to play against them and test their own skills and what they need to work on. So I think we, last year we did about 8-9 weeks of ITF tournaments in Karnataka and I think that that provided a lot of opportunity for our Indian players to play at home because otherwise it’s so expensive for them to travel out of India for playing one or two weeks of ITF World Tennis Tour.
Maharashtra has also done something really similar. Then Tamil Nadu had about 2-3 weeks. Hence, India was able to host about 19-20 weeks of ITF World Tennis Tour. It’s an amazing thing and we would like to host more ITF’s in Karnataka, give more opportunity because it is high time that the junior players, when they’re in 16, 17, should start playing a lot of these ITFs because it helps them improve faster and gives them a reality check of what they need to work on when they have to move forward. So I think that exposure should start early.
Q) What about at the grassroot level?
These 11-12 district associations have a coaching scheme going on there, with the players and coaches. A lot of kids are playing and that itself is a big thing because otherwise many of these kids wouldn’t have probably even picked up tennis. So now there’s an opportunity for them to play tennis there and get coached. We have some qualified coaches in all these places. The other next plan that we have is to start conducting regional camps. We are looking at having a regional center somewhere in north of Karnataka, in one of the backward districts, so that the kids from that region can come under one umbrella and train in that regional center.
Q) Coming back to Bengaluru Open. Does KSLTA have a roadmap for Bengaluru Open to upgraded to an ATP 250 event?
We would not shy away from having the ATP 250 whenever there’s an opportunity. But the ATP 250 is not available very easily. India had it in Chennai for 21 years ,then Maharashtra had it for about 3-4 years and but ultimately it moved out because these are owned and there’s a limited number of tournaments and they’re all owned by private promoters who keep moving to wherever they get a better deal. But yes, if there’s an opportunity, why not. Bengaluru is a deserves to have a annual ATP tour event.
Q) Could you also talk about Bengaluru Open witnessing a surge in number of sponsors
I think Bengaluru Open has now become a brand. A lot of corporates and communities in the city are aware of Bengaluru Open and they all look forward for it. And we’ve had some instances where corporates themselves have come forward and said that we would like to partner and that’s a big achievement for us. One thing is our Karnataka government is very supportive. But I think we’ve been doing a pretty good job in bringing in the sponsors. Some of them have stayed on with us for all the nine editions, and some of them have been here for like last 3-4 years. And then even this year there are a couple of new sponsors. So I think this is something that we keep talking to sponsors, we keep inviting them to come and watch and they also know and see what is the good thing happening. So I think there’s definitely an interest amongst the corporate community and towards Bangalore Open.
Q) Did Bengaluru Open miss the top stars this time, with no Sumit Nagal or Rithvik Bollipalli?
We had spoken to Nagal and he had taken a professional decision on wanting to go play in South America on clay court. We respect that. But yeah, I mean these were the tournaments. Nagal won his first pro tournament here in Bengaluru in 2017, then he’s went on to win Chennai two years ago. So I think these tournaments have done good for him. But obviously he probably wanted to play on clay and you know. I mean we should respect that. As for Sriram Balaji or Bollipalli, I think their ranking is very high. It doesn’t make sense for them to play Challenger. They are able to get main draw into ATP tour event. So that’s fine.
Q) With Bengaluru earning a promotion, how has the crowd response been?
Crowd has always been good. Bengaluru is known for its sporting culture and we have been getting decent crowds. Compared to any other city in the country, on an average we had about 750-2000 people coming and watching matches through the day.
