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Paes, Bhupati for Asia Cup

Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupati will spearhead the Indian challenge in the inaugural $84,000 ATF Asia Cup tournament, scheduled to be held in New Delhi between November 3-8.

Besides India, participating countries include Korea, China, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, Uzbekistan and Chinese Taipei. The teams were selected on the basis of performances in the zonal and inter-zonal Davis Cup ties.

Tournament director Anil Khanna indicated that the event would rank as the biggest ever to be staged in the country, given that the Davis Cup squads of eight nations would be participating.

The tournament, slated to be an annual affair, provides a purse of $22,000 to the winner. The runners-up will net $14,000, third placed team nets $12,000, team number four gets $10,000 and the remaining teams, in order, net $6,000, $5,000 and $4,000 respectively.

The eight teams, divided into two groups of four teams each, will play round robin style with the top two teams qualifying for the semifinals.

As per the schedule, the round robin league will be played on November 3-5. Playoff for the fifth to seventh places is on November 6, the semis on November 7 and the finals on November 8. Each tie will comprise two singles and one doubles, each being played over the best of three sets.

In order to increase public interest, the ties will be played as day-and-night events.

India will be captained by Jaideep Mukherjee and represented by Paes, Bhupati, Sandeep Kirtane and Nitin Kirtane.