Get ready for a brand new season of men's tennis as some of the world's leading players kick-start their respective 2019 campaigns at the ATP 250 Maharashtra Open in Pune, live between December 31 to January 5.
Big-serving top 10 stars Marin Cilic and Kevin Anderson lead the field as French veteran Gilles Simon aims to defend his title, while Australian Open semi-finalist Hyeon Chung will be looking to round into some immediate form before heading down under to defend his points from last year.
ATP Pune tennis is live from December 31 to January 5, 2019, with play starting around 2.00pm local/9.30am GMT. Bookmaker bet365 are offering customers the opportunity to watch a live stream of the match alongside in-play betting.
5. Enjoy a live stream & in-play betting for ATP Pune tennis, live from December 31 to January 5, 2019.
Two top 10 players, a rising star and reigning Grand Slam semi-finalist and the defending champion headline the 2019 Maharashtra Open in Pune as the 2019 ATP season officially begins.
Leading the charge will be World No. 6 Kevin Anderson. The South African has transformed into one of the world's best players over the last two seasons, making Grand Slam finals at the U.S. Open in 2017 and Wimbledon in 2018, along with capturing his maiden ATP 500 title in Vienna and also picking up the inaugural ATP 250 New York Open crown.
Anderson's impressive 2018 culminated with a debut appearance at the season-ending ATP Finals in London, where he advanced to the semi-finals before going down to World No. 1 Novak Djokovic. Determined to launch his 2019 season with more silverware, Anderson will surely be there or thereabouts come the business end of the tournament - just as he was in 2018, when he went down in the final.
Marin Cilic, the World No. 7, also qualified for the ATP Finals in 2018, mostly on the back of his Australian Open runner-up finish to Roger Federer and his title triumph at the ATP 500 Queen's Club, where he saved a match point to defeat Djokovic. Cilic wasn't as consistent as he was in 2017, but the powerful Croatian remains a formidable presence at any tournament he enters, and he will be keen to improve on last year's showing in Pune, where he was defeated in the semi-finals.
Gilles Simon was the man who beat both Anderson and Cilic on his way to the Maharashtra Open title last season. The experienced Frenchman remains one of the trickiest players to encounter on tour, with Simon putting together a mini-resurgence in 2018 that also yielded a title in Metz and finished with him ranked at No. 30 in the world.
Rounding out the top four seeds is South Korean youngster Hyeon Chung, who is looking to re-establish himself as one of the most promising players in men's tennis after the back-half of his 2018 season was interrupted by injury. Chung started 2018 with a bang as he made his first major semi-final at the Australian Open and made at least the quarter-finals in six of his first seven tournaments, but an ankle injury ultimately derailed the rest of his campaign.
There will be plenty of top-tier tennis elsewhere in the 2019 Maharashtra Open field, led by the likes of Benoit Paire, Malek Jaziri, Ernests Gulbis, Ivo Karlovic and many more!
Check back here later when the 2019 Maharashtra Open seeds are announced.
First played in 1996, the Maharashtra Open has been India's only ATP World Tour tournament for 21 years, and it enjoys an unrivalled position only boosted by the increased Challenger Tour presence in India.
The event began as the McDowell Open in Delhi in 1996 and moved to Chennai in 1997 as the Gold Flake Open (and later the Chennai Open), where it remained until midway through 2017 when tournament organisers were unable to meet the commercial demands of global juggernauts IMG, who are the owners of the event. IMG initially wanted to take the tournament abroad, but they received a lot of offers from other Indian cities, with the Maharashtra State Lawn Tennis Association (MSLTA) winning a bid as the state government also passed a resolution to support the event.
The tournament has been rebranded as the Maharashtra Open and will be staged at the Balewadi Sports Complex until 2022. The venue features one central hard court and four competition courts, with six warm-up courts. The centre court has a seating capacity of 4200 people.
The Maharashtra Open has always prided itself on being a 'cradle of champions' and if you look at its list of former winners you can see why - with many of the victorious going on to Grand Slam success and being ranked world no. 1. Thomas Enqvist played the first match at the event against Mark Petchey in 1996, going on to win the inaugural edition, and Australia's Pat Rafter boosted his Australian Open chances with a 1998 win over Mikael Tillstrom.
Guillermo Canas and Paradorn Srichaparn would go on to capture the title before former world no. 1 Carlos Moya became the first man to win back-to-back titles in 2004-5, beating defending champion Srichaparn in the final both years.
Marin Cilic, a semifinalist at the Australian Open and a Grand Slam champion at the 2014 US Open, became the second man in the tournament's history to win back-to-back titles in 2009-10, defeating homegrown star Somdev Devvarman in the 2009 final and Stan Wawrinka in 2010.
Wawrinka would go on to win his first title in 2011 and was followed by emerging Canadian star Milos Raonic in 2012 and charismatic Serbian presence Janko Tipsarevic in 2013.
Wawrinka dominated the tournament over the next three years as he firmly established himself as a top four player and Grand Slam champion, defeating Edouard Roger-Vasselin, Aljaz Bedene and Borna Coric in the 2014, 2015 and 2016 finals to become the first man to capture three Chennai titles. Wawrinka didn't return in 2017 to defend his title and it was the ever-present Roberto Bautista Agut that took advantage, beating young gun Daniil Medvedev in the final. Marin Cilic and Kevin Anderson lined up as the top two seeds in 2018, but it was French veteran Gilles Simon that took home the title, defeating both players in the semi-final and final respectively.